Paranoia
by Batmanskipper
Summary: One year after She Never Looked Back: When Skipper's mentor retires, he asks him to try to solve one of his old dead cases. At first it just looks like paperwork, but as he begins to delve deeper, he finds his world turned upside down. Unable to trust his oldest friends, and even himself, Skipper must solve the case before he destroys everything he cares about.
1. Back From the 'Dead'

**I know I'm pushing my luck writing a third story, but I'd already come up with an idea, and just had to write it. Oh well, I hope it's as good as the previous two.**

**This story takes place about a year after the end of She Never Looked Back**

"So, what are you putting in Skipper's coffee this time?" Kowalski asked, trying to peer under the gigantic black curtain obscuring Kowalski's view of half the kitchen. Kowalski narrowly dodged a kick to the face as Rico's foot his the area of curtain when Kowalski had previously been standing.

"I' a supri'. 'o peekin'" Rico grunted, standing on the other side of the curtain. Kowalski heard the sound of a knife steadily hitting a cutting board.

"Use the katana, Rico," Kowalski complained, "I still haven't gotten my breakfast and you're taking longer than it will take the sun to become a red giant!"

"'ipper probabl' ain' up yet." Rico replied, continuing to take his time. Skipper and Marlene lived in the apartment next door, though the rest of the team still had to share one, albeit a three bedroom, apartment. They had been lucky to afford that, the way housing prices were going. There had been much debate as to where they were going to move to, but they drew lots and agreed on Manhattan. Despite the fact that Skipper was now across the street, Rico still prepared his coffee, complete with a new mystery fish every week.

"Oh, he's up. While you were on that Rio job, he started going back to the routine. You know, getting us all up at 0600, and running us through training and sparing. Marlene even had a go at sparring against Private."

"By 'Marlene sparring against Private', Kowalski meant: allowing her to use me as a punching bag, since I can't touch Skipper's girl," Private added, walking down the stairs. He was carrying his home schooling materials, ready for his chemistry lessons in Kowalski's lab, which normally consisted of learning what not to do when faced with highly reactive chemicals, "You know, I think Skipper misses the danger of the agency. I certainly do."

"He still takes the occasional job," Kowalski replied, "Not as Skipper, of course, just minor stuff."

"No kaboom." Rico added.

"Rico does have a point, from what I can tell, they were all pretty boring." Private concurred.

"Ta da!" Rico emerged from behind the curtain carrying a steaming cup of black coffee. By that I mean, ink black.

"Rico, what did you put in there?" Private asked, looking disgusted.

"Squid!" Rico replied excitedly.

"I don't know how Skipper manages to swallow those foul concoctions." Private muttered heading towards the lab.

"I'm not ready for your lesson yet, Private. I lost yesterday's game of chess. Rico _literally_ wiped me off the board," Kowalski gave Rico a wilting glare, though Rico just smiled victoriously, "Due to his unorthodox interpretation of the rules of chess, it is my turn to get the groceries."

* * *

"Well, if there's one good thing about being dead," Skipper admitted happily, "It's being able to walk into a movie theatre without someone trying to arrest and extradite me."

"Movie theatre?" Marlene asked. The two were seated in a small theatre in New York, talking in whispers while they waited for the ads to end and the film to start.

"Yeah," Suddenly Skipper spotted something in one of the commercials, "No, that's not how you fly a jet pack!" Marlene didn't so much as raise an eyebrow at the outburst. She was used to it, "Yeah, most people going after the 1,000,000 krone on me, have a tendency to use movie theatres as hideouts. No idea why."

"Hm. Never knew that," Marlene muttered. The trailers ended, and the movie began.

"Arsenic and Old Lace?" Skipper asked, frowning at the black and white screen, "No wonder you refused to tell me what you were taking me to?"

"It's a classic. You'll enjoy it."

The movie ended, Marlene still clinging to Skipper's arm, despite the fact the scary part had long since ended. She'd been in far more dangerous situations herself, yet she was still got frightened when the bad guy would creep up behind the main character and try to kill him.

"Excuse me, but do you know the time?" an English accented voice in the row above asked. Marlene looked at her watch

"Eight thirty," she answered

"0600 hours." Skipper gave the countersign almost out of habit.

"No I'm pretty sure it's…"

"Look, I'm out of the business. Name's Agent Troy, I retired for medical reasons three years ago. Just ask head office," Skipper used the identity of Agent Troy, who really did exist and retired for medical reasons, just in case an agent who had somehow not heard of Skipper's demise recognised him.

"Come now, Skipper, you can't expect me to believe that old trick," the man replied, "after all, I taught you to keep multiple covers," Skipper looked up, finally recognising the voice.

"Agent Nigel, sir?" Skipper could hardly believe his eyes.

"You can cut the 'sir' now. You're not with the Penguin Division anymore, and they're putting me out to grass in a few weeks." Nigel replied.

"You don't look much like old Troy anyway."

"What can I say? It's hard to find someone else with my rugged good looks."

"Um…" Marlene looked at the two uncomfortably. Skipper normally didn't like her around when he talked work, though he often explained, it was for her safety. The less she knew the better.

"Agent Nigel, my wife Marlene," Skipper introduced, "Marlene, Agent Nigel. He's Private's uncle, and my mentor."

"Nice to meet you," Nigel greeted cordially, "Now, shall we get down to the nuts and bolts?"

"I'm not an agent anymore." Skipper refused.

"I know, that's why I came to you. Like I said, they're putting me out to grass in a few weeks."

"Yeah mandatory retirement age: no leaving any younger, or any older. I guess you've got me to blame for that."

"I certainly do. Rockgut was worried that the story of the loop hole of Skipper the Great…"

"Skipper the Great?"

"… and now, Late, would circle 'round to all the other officers who wanted out. Then we'd find ourselves in quite a pickle," Agent Nigel removed a folder from his leather satchel, "Now, I here, despite your retirement you are very much in the game."

"Not really, I only take on one or two _very safe _cases when the bank balance is getting low."

"Well, what I wanted to ask, was if you'd take on an old case of mine," Skipper flipped through the folder, his eyes narrowing.

"I'm interested," Skipper answered, with a bit too much gusto. Seeing Marlene's disapproving look, he continued, "Why don't you finish it?"

"I've been going at this case for forty years. Also, Rockgut's started having us retirees followed, just to make sure we don't try to do anything freelance, or see if we try and dodge the retirement age by making a dash for the other side."

"Waste of good agents." Skipper muttered.

"I want you to finish the case. I know it's probably unsolvable, but some of the facts just keep nagging at me," Nigel stood up from his seat, "For some reason, I can't bear to leave it unsolved. Well, what did I always do when I needed a second opinion on an uncrackable case?"

"Ask Skipper." Skipper smiled at the fond memory.

"Look, I'm sorry to break up the reunion, but Skipper's out of the game." Marlene interrupted.

"I assure you, madam, this is purely paperwork, and I am equally positive there is some ambitious young agent out there who would love to take credit for this piece of work." Nigel answered.

"I still don't think…"

"I'll take the case." Skipper interrupted.

"Nice to see you Skipper," Nigel could see that the faster he left, the less chance Marlene had of convincing Skipper not to take the case. He set off in the direction of the theatre's exit, "Say hello to Private for me."

"Sure thing, sir."

* * *

"Little B?" Doris knocked on the door of her brother's lab.

"Whoever it is, I'm not in." a voice from behind the door shouted impatiently.

"Don't make me pick the lock, Francis Norman Blowhole!" Doris yelled. This was followed by the sound of footsteps, and a few seconds later, there was the scraping sound of a key being turned in the lock, and the door opened.

"Don't call me that, Doris." Blowhole complained.

"You've been in that lab for three weeks."

"And?" Blowhole rolled his eyes, "I really don't want to hear another lecture about how the chemicals are bad for my health."

"Little B…" Blowhole attempted to shut the door of the lab, in anticipation of a very long lecture. However, Doris wedged her foot in the door, holding it open, "I want you to take me shopping."

"Ask Kowalski."

"He's dead." Doris uttered the words hollowly, doing her best to make sure her brother didn't notice the stab of pain she felt at the mention of her late boyfriend's name.

"Ask Dalia."

"She's at Blue's having her amnesia and delusions of being me treated."

"Ask Clemson. He's a nice young man…"

"He's boring, and stop telling me who to date."

"Go by yourself." Blowhole made another attempt to shut the door, painfully crushing Doris' foot between the door frame. Blowhole didn't seem to care.

"When you take me I get to jump the ques. Anyway, I can't fly a plane, and there's nothing around, since we're in the middle of the Atlantic ocean."

"And I almost always nearly get arrested," Blowhole muttered.

"_Nearly,_ not actually."

"The answer's no. I'm working on something." Blowhole kicked Doris' foot out of the way before slamming the door.

"I'm going to stand here hammering on the door, all day," Doris threatened, "You won't be able to get any of that stupid mind control machine done!"

"Fine!" the door opened again and Blowhole stormed out, tossing his lab coat onto a chair behind him, "Where do you want to go?"

"How about… New York?"


	2. Does He Look Familiar?

Blowhole followed Doris grudgingly down Fifth Avenue, wincing at the cost of every purchase, and thinking of every possible better use of the time. Doris, on the other hand, was enjoying herself immensely, almost completely ignoring her brother until she wanted his credit card. She hadn't been out of the submarine in some time, though it was a big submarine with many rooms she had yet to explore, and was trying to make the most of her venture into civilization.

"You hungry?" She asked.

"Where do you want to go now?" He sighed, assuming she was only asking to see if she could fit in another few stores before lunch.

"How about Maison Koala?" She answered.

"Are you insane!"

"How much have you spent on lab equipment in the last few months…" Doris asked.

"Alright, fine."

* * *

"What do you want now!" the man exclaimed, trying not to make it so obvious he was cowering behind the desk in the restaurant, Maison Koala's, office.

"What, no hello?" Kowalski asked, trying to lighten the mood. Since Leonard wasn't in the insanely classified community, he hadn't heard of his team's demise, "The team's heard reports of a sleeping ninja trying to hug the local Rats. Did you have another late night Lunicorn marathon?"

"It's none of your business, go away." Leonard replied hurriedly.

"Head office has really been on my case with this one. I don't want the Rats attacking the restaurant again. We can't always be here to protect you," Kowalski really didn't want the Rats going after Leonard, since preventing something as big as that would unavoidably get media attention, and they couldn't wait for the professionals, since by the time a Penguin team arrived, it would be too late for Leonard and his family, "Now, did you watch the Lunicorns after 2100 or not?"

"Fine, I did," Leonard thought for a second. He hated Kowalski's stabilising treatment: equal amounts of time in front of mindless violence, "But I can't start the treatment on an empty stomach, and neither can you. Why don't you take a seat out in the restaurant and I'll make you a bowl of that fish stew you like."

"Are you trying to bribe me with food?"

"No, no, not at all…" Kowalski had to admit, the prospect of fresh fish stew sounded good.

"Alright, but you start your treatment immediately afterwards, no more stalling."

* * *

"Doris, I don't like any of this." Blowhole complained, staring at the menu. They'd managed to get a table almost immediately; after all, it wasn't a good idea to anger an alleged master criminal.

"No, you just can't read it and don't want to admit it." Doris replied.

"I've got an invention for that."

"And you left it behind." Doris looked through the menu, finally pointing to one of the main courses, "You're having that."

"Doris!"

"Don't complain, you like…"

"I don't care about the food, Doris, look behind you." He hissed. Doris turned around puzzled. Behind her was a table with only one chair, where a man, who's jeans and t-shirt probably didn't pass the dress code, sat enjoying a bowl of fish casserole, "Doris, does he look familiar to you?" He certainly did look familiar to her!

"Um… no?" As much as she wanted to run screaming at the man as to why he allowed her to think he was dead for over a year, she resisted the urge, knowing that revealing Kowalski's identity would only get him killed and her brother arrested. She was fine with inflicting grievous bodily harm with her handbag to reinforce the point that Kowalski was never to do that to her again, but she didn't want him dead. If another girl walked in and kissed him… well, then she wouldn't be so adverse to the idea. The thought that Kowalski may have replaced her was more frightening than anything she'd already thought of.

"Are you sure?"

"Can't place him. Why? Who do you think he resembles?"

"Your late boyfriend."

"Kowalski? No, he doesn't look like Kowalski." She replied hurriedly.

"Hm… strange." Blowhole went back to criticising the menu, Doris silently sighing with relief. She just had to find some way to speak to him alone.

* * *

"Amazing as ever, Leonard," Kowalski finished his bowl, "Now, about those eight hours of Shirtless Ninja…"

"I have a restaurant to run, come back this evening when we're closed."

"Then it wouldn't work. You'd fall asleep."

"I can't…"

"Excuse me?" Leonard turned around at the sound of the calling customer, "One second, I have to see to this young lady."

"Alright, Leonard, but if you're not back in ten minutes I will personally haul you back to the HQ and force you to watch twelve hours." Kowalski threatened. Leonard started off through the crowded restaurant towards the woman who had called for his attention.

"Yes madam?" Doris looked around; making sure her brother was more focused on his food than her.

"Would you give this to the gentleman at the table over there?" Doris asked, pointing to Kowalski as she handed Leonard a slip of paper.

"And if he should ask from whom the note came?"

"It's in the note."

* * *

"Not good not good not good not good…" Kowalski paced the lab frantically, occasionally glancing down at the slip of paper in his hands, "Fingerprints and handwriting check out, but is it from her…? Not good not good not good not…"

"What's not good?"

"Skipper?!" Kowalski exclaimed, then realising it was not Skipper, calmed down, "Oh… hello Private."

"What's that?"

"Nothing!" But Private had already taken the note before Kowalski could hide it under a nearby fire extinguisher.

"_Dear Kowalski,_

_What on earth are you doing?! I thought you were dead? My brother almost recognised you back at the restaurant. Had to cover for you. Will talk to you about this later. Meet at my Tribeca apartment._

_You'd better have a good explanation for this,_

_Doris,"_

"Did you really have to read that aloud?" Kowalski winced, hoping Rico or Skipper wasn't hiding behind the door. He still checked, just in case, Private giving him an odd expression.

"All you have to do is not show up."

"Then you don't know Doris," Kowalski muttered, "If I don't show up, she will hunt me down…"

"She can't be that bad."

"… and if my excuse isn't good enough she will tell her brother…"

"Well, that is bad."

"Does magnesium burn in nitrogen?! Of course it's bad."

"I don't think it does." Private replied, thinking of the only experiment Kowalski had done which hadn't resulted in an explosion. In fact, it hadn't resulted in anything.

"Theoretically it can," Kowalski replied, unable to resist a science related question, "Anyway, after she tells her brother, and our cover is blown, our whole team and everyone associated with us will be horrifically…"

"You could tell Doris only you survived, and you were so shocked by the experience that you were able to do nothing for weeks and you had only started to get back on your feet in the last couple of months. You could say… um, you were separated from the group when you went back to get her photograph?"

"Brilliant idea, private!" Kowalski exclaimed, "How did you think of…?"

"You always miss the most obvious solution." Private replied.

"Obvious… yes that is pretty obvious," Kowalski stared at the wall lost in thought, "No, what if she thought it was too obvious too… and did some checks."

"You have a point."

"Yes, with her brother's resources she'd be able to recover the indestructible memory unit containing the footage from the cameras before they were destroyed. With her brother's resources, she'd be able to dig it up from under the ruins. They'd show us getting away. "

"They can't be easy to get to though, if Rockgut couldn't check it."

"No, he didn't have the password and couldn't risk wiping it after too many false attempts. But Doris would be able to guess the password."

"Why?" Private asked puzzled as to why one of the foremost spymasters in the world wouldn't be able to crack the password, yet Kowalski's terror of a girlfriend would be able to simply guess it.

"Because it's 'Doris'. The password is Doris. All my passwords are Doris."

"I don't suppose we could steal it first?"

"Does Rico have a bulldozer and two or three diggers in that back pack of his. No, she's going to find it," Kowalski continued to stare off into space, "No, she'll definitely find it…" Suddenly his face lit up, and Private could have sworn he saw a light bulb appear above his head, "Yes, she's going to find it."


	3. A Date With Doris

The case seemed simple. Forty years ago, a past less mercenary who went by the name of The Red Squirrel embezzled $40,000 while working on a case for the Penguin Division. After that, he managed to become Penguin enemy no.1, then at the height of his career, disappeared and hadn't been heard of since. Agent Nigel, who was only a junior agent at the time, was assigned the task of recovering the money, the more senior agents given the more prestigious job of finding the Squirrel himself.

"What am I missing?!" Skipper's fist slammed into the desk, making his empty coffee cup jump dangerously close to the edge of the table. At first Skipper thought Nigel was losing his touch, but there was something about the case that didn't seem right. Skipper had been up all night searching through records, constantly asking Kowalski to hack this database and that database, despite the fact the scientist seemed busy with his own project. He'd tried to take a break from the case, he normally hated paperwork, but he could now see why Nigel had kept at it so many years: it seemed almost to haunt him.

"Skipper?" Marlene poked her head around the door of the living room.

"What?" he snapped.

"You've been awake 27 hours. Aren't you going to take a nap?"

"NO!" Marlene took a few steps backwards, "I'm… I'm sorry, it just doesn't make sense. The money just disappeared. It was sitting in the bank account, and then it was gone. No transfers, no robberies, nothing. There one minute and gone the next."

"It's been forty years, Skipper, some of the files might have simply been lost to time."

"But why those files? All the other ones are there?"

"Have some breakfast, Skipper. The money disappeared years ago. Does it really matter?"

"The puzzling part is, he took the money, but he never used it. He was struggling for cash, yet it sat in that Swiss bank account until a week after he disappeared. It was physical money, not the electronic stuff they have nowadays. It can't just vanish."

"Skipper, it doesn't matter." Marlene could see the look he had, she knew it well. It was the same look he got when he was an agent, when for the next few days he would do nothing but work: not eating, not sleeping, doing nothing but work on that case. It make him a great agent, he always go the job done, but a terrible husband.

"Yes it does. The Squirrel was at the height of his career. A few more years, and he probably would have been able to take over the world."

"Maybe he died. Maybe he gave up."

"People like him don't just give up!"

"You did." Skipper rolled his eyes.

"Touché. Now, can I have another cup of coffee? Ask Rico for a hundred year old herring."

* * *

"Alright Private, I'm done." Kowalski admired his on screen masterpiece.

"May I watch it?" Private asked, wondering how running around in front of a green background and finding Kowalski countless films from their summer holidays was going to convince Doris of anything.

"I think it's a bit above your age rating." Kowalski answered.

"I've never been in a movie before." Private coaxed.

"If you have nightmares Skipper will know I'm seeing Doris. If Skipper knows I'm seeing Doris, he'll try and make sure she is anonymously dropped off at head office for questioning."

"I won't tell him anything."

"You talk in your sleep."

"Can I come with you to meet Doris?"

"No."

"We got on quite nicely when…"

"No."

* * *

"I am telling you, de sciency penguin is alive!" Julian stomped about the minimalist office like a young child.

"Listen, King, nobody could have survived that fire," Rockgut answered for what seemed like the millionth time, "Not even them." Rockgut had given up on finding the team long ago. It wasn't that he didn't believe they survived, just that, if they didn't want to be found, they wouldn't be found with less than a billion dollar international manhunt, something even his boss couldn't authorise.

"But de software update!" Julian pulled MORT out of his pocket, "Look!" Julian set the device on his feet.

"Get me off!" it squealed, immediately driving to the other side of the room, "Feet," MORT shuddered, "dey are evil."

"He does not touch de feet!"

"Do you really expect to believe Kowalski miraculously dragged himself out of the rubble, which I point out is across the Atlantic ocean, just to give you a software update, then went back across and stayed put like a good little zombie?" Rockgut asked sarcastically.

"If you do not…"

"Excuse me, your majesty," Maurice interrupted, seeing he was seriously testing the other man's patience, "But I think it might be a good idea if I handled this."

"Yes, do all de handling you want," Julian snapped, turning his back on the man at the desk, "May be you can be getting de sense into Mr Stupidy-top-secret over there."

"Um, sir, the king does have a point," Maurice argued more diplomatically, "Kowalski was the only one who had the software update, and would be able to install it. Our lab boys were trying to fix MORT's software glitch for months, and never made any progress, so it couldn't have been someone else."

"You have a point." Rockgut answered grudgingly, though glad that Julian's assistant was making more sense.

"They were your best agents, not to mention the ones with the most security clearance. Don't you think any possibility of their survival should be investigated?"

"Ok. So we find out they're alive. What then? They could be anywhere, anyone, and how do we drag them back here? If I know Skipper, he'd die fighting before he was ever captured."

"Knowledge is power. If they've joined the enemy, well, now you know it and can be ready."

"What's your stake in this?" Rockgut asked suspiciously. He doubted Julian's main concern was national security.

"Let's just say," Maurice looked over his shoulder. Julian was still pouting, "It's my employer's latest obsession," Maurice looked back at Rockgut. It was clear from his expression that the man still had doubts about dredging up the investigation, "If you're worried about funding, I'm sure Mr King would be more than happy in that department."

"Alright, I'll start a formal investigation."

* * *

Kowalski stood before the door of the apartment, his hand poised to knock as it had been for the last two minutes. If he messed up, he could theoretically end up facing Doris's, Skipper's, Blowhole's Rockgut's, and worst of all Rico's wrath. Even each on their own weren't pretty, but all together? Kowalski shuddered at the thought.

"You can come in, you know." Kowalski heard a familiar female voice shout through the door. Kowalski turned bright red, and opened the door.

"Um… hello Doris?"

"Whatonearthdidyouthinkyouwer edoing…" it took all of Kowalski's courage to stand his ground as the woman stormed towards him.

"Keep it down, Doris!" Blowhole shouted from another room, "If you've lost the TV remote again, consider walking 1.45 meters to change the channel manually."

"Is this a trap…?!" Kowalski backed towards the door.

"He insisted on coming after I stole his wallet and tried to pass the $9,000 mark with another day of shopping," Doris replied, forgetting her anger for a split second, "Little B's in his lab though. Nothing short of VIP tickets to Invexpo will get him out of there."

"You mean he hasn't got…"

"Back to the matter at hand, _dearest_," Doris scowled, "Now, forawholeyearyouwereactually stillaliveandyouneverremembe redtocalloratleastwrite…"

"Doris, I can explain, if you'd just listen…" Kowalski recounted the story, "See, I was going to call you as soon as I found out where you were."

"Hm…" She looked at him sceptically as Kowalski fidgeted with the disk in his pocket, waiting for the inevitable:, "I don't believe you. Admit it, Kowalski, if you could make it out, so could Skipper." Kowalski took the disk out of his pocket. He'd made sure the Airline records showed that a Jan Kowalski had booked a charter flight to Barcelona yesterday afternoon, roughly an hour after he should have gotten the note. He'd also arranged (with some friends he'd made working at JulianTech) for the site of the house to be excavated and a computer like object to be removed. Flight attendants would be able to swear that a Jan Kowalski had taken the object back with him.

"I thought you'd say that, that's why I brought this." Kowalski inserted the disk into the DVD drive. Now all he had to do was wait and see if she'd believe it.


	4. I Already Knew

_Skipper watched as Marlene was carried off to safety._

_"__Where are you going" Skipper asked calmly, turning around at the sound of footsteps._

_"__The photo, Doris's photo!" Kowalski answered, starting to climb up towards the roof._

_"__For Pete's sake Kowalski…!"_

_"__Try and stop me!" Kowalski disappeared up into the second level, intending to reach his room via the attic. Skipper could see there was no use trying to go after him; he'd only endanger the team who would insist on following._

_"__Rico, find us a way out of here," Skipper ordered. Rico took a grappling hook from his backpack and secured it to the edge of the window. He was about to step back to allow Private to go down first when the roof suddenly collapsed._

_"__Rico!" Skipper screamed as the rubble crashed down on to the weapons specialist, who fell backwards as if he'd been tackled. Private rushed towards the man, digging furiously at the non-burning bits of debris, plaster, and moss covered rocks. _

_"__Skipper…" Private's voice faded, the youngest member of the team was trying hard to keep it together. Private's back was in the way of the camera, but when he looked around, it was clear by his expression, and the unnatural angle of Rico's neck, that there was no trying to save him._

_"__Let's keep going." Skipper looked up at hole in the ceiling, as if trying to find north, only to find it covered by debris. They were cut off from Kowalski, "Damn the sentimental idiot." Skipper cursed. He knelt down by Rico's body and removed the backpack, "Stay close behind me, Private. I don't want you to get lost."_

_The image changed to another camera, the transition suggesting that the first had been destroyed. This showed what looked like a hallway. Skipper and Private ran as fast as they could, though Private blocked most of the camera's view of Skipper. Private was coughing, and didn't look good. Suddenly there was a crackling sound Skipper looked up at the camera, frowning, and the suddenly camera switched. _

_"__Private, look out!" skipper shouted pushing the boy forward. The camera shook as debris fell in front of it, so Skipper's expression was unclear, though the sound of his voice, cracking like a voice only cracks when either close to tears or laughing, said it all. Several of the support beams above Skipper collapsed, and Private watched as a wall of burning timber separated the two. Private stared at the wall, horrified. Still, he had to keep going. Private rushed off in the only direction he could go: forward. _

_Skipper was almost to the door. Almost. That, ironically was his downfall. He rushed towards his objective, ignoring his surroundings. Suddenly, he stepped on a weak patch of floor, and fell through almost immediately. He grabbed the edge of the floor with one hand. The horrified expression grew as he saw the wooden handhold slowly crack. Down below was weapons storage room, the floor around the safe covered in steel spikes. Skipper made a grab with the other hand for the ledge, but missed. Without warning, his handhold, already at a dangerous angle, dropped off entirely. The camera switched to one of the infra-red ones in the weapons storage room. Even in heat camera, the sight of the man impaled on the spikes and bleeding out was not pretty._

_The camera changed. This time, it was a hallway so filled with smoke it was hard to see. A dark smudged started to move down the hallway, coughing. As it approached the camera, the image became clearer. Private stumbled forwards, coughing violently._

_"__Private?" Kowalski appeared through one of the doors, a torn kitchen towel soaked in water covering his mouth and nose. He rushed towards the boy, just as he started to collapsed. Kowalski grabbed him just before he hit the floor, "Come on Private, don't give up now." _

_The two were outside the house now, on the opposite side to the crowds and fire fighters. Kowalski had dragged Private a safe distance from the house. The boy's body was drenched with sweat, soot and vomit. Kowalski knew the symptoms caused by smoke inhalation. His right arm was also badly burned, the bone showing through the blackened tissue. Private coughed and gasped for air through damaged lungs…_

"I've seen enough." Doris stopped the video. Kowalski 'who couldn't bear to relive the experience' and had kept his back turned looked around at Doris. Having listened to the film a few hours later, Kowalski had to say, it was a little melodramatic, but skipper had been quite over the top the time they'd gotten lost last time they went camping, but those were the only non-classified videos Kowalski had of skipper in which he wasn't in swimming shorts. Doris might have liked that a bit too much.

"Why are you turning it off?" Blowhole asked, looking genuinely disappointed. Kowalski hadn't seen him enter the room, and certainly hoped Blowhole hadn't seen him yet. Kowalski tried to keep to the far corner of the room, behind the lamp. Doris glared at her brother.

"That was all that was left of Kowalski's family." Doris replied hoarsely. How cold could her brother be?

"Well, we got past the good part. I wish it was Skipper who'd died of smoke inhalation, much more painful," Blowhole commented, "Oh well, he died slower than Rico," Then he turned to Kowalski, who would have made a dive for the door, if it hadn't been that Blowhole was standing between him and it. He didn't like his chances in hand to hand combat with the man either, so simply stood there, "Can I keep that copy?"

"If you want it." Kowalski replied. He wasn't sure how he should act. It wasn't exactly something he'd prepared for.

"Thanks. Is this the original copy?"

"It's the one Rockgut gave me. He said he got it out of the wreckage."

"Without your password?"

"He had an override."

"It's Doris, isn't it?

"How did you…? Doris, did you tell him?" Kowalski was desperately trying to keep Doris' brother's attention off the topic of _oh look, my mortal enemy is in the room. Let's kill him._

"You're just insanely predictable, not to mention easy to fool," Blowhole answered boredly, "your team isn't dead, you know. Not even Private. My sources say he pulled through after you left him at the hospital."

"They aren't?!" Kowalski exclaimed, trying to seem surprised. Had he made a mistake with the editing? Was the footage too clear? Had a random mountain bike managed to find its way into one of the dramatic death scenes?

"No, they aren't. Not even Private. My sources say he pulled through after you left him at the hospital," Now Kowalski was genuinely surprised. How did Blowhole know and, seemingly, be able to prove a story fabricated only twenty four hours ago? "That footage was put together from previous videos, namely your holiday films and the recordings of Private's poor attempts to create a Penguin Division Shakespeare company," Blowhole replied in the same monotone, as if he honestly didn't care. Kowalski stiffened. How had he guessed? "I hate to give out spoilers, but Rockgut's been lying to you," Blowhole smirked, pacing the room in his usual bragging about his evil scheme manor, "No, no, not willingly, you see he's…"

"Little B, that's not your scheme, you don't get to brag about it." Doris reminded.

"Technically I have a 6% share…"

"You've said far more than your six per cent," Doris saw this as a good opportunity to get away, "Come on Kowalski."

"Wait, where are you going?" Blowhole asked, though Kowalski could see his mind was half on whatever was in that lab.

"Oh… interrogation." Doris lied.

"No need to lie, Doris. You can take him out to dinner," Blowhole opened the safe at the other end of the room, and removed his credit card, tossing it to her. Kowalski memorised the combination, "The longer you're out the more peace and quiet I'll have in the lab." He was up to something; still, Kowalski was more focused on getting out than exploiting his unusual talkative yet distracted mood "Oh and Kowalski?"

"Uh… yes?" Kowalski stuttered, hoping his evil counterpart hadn't decided the prospect of killing him was just too tempting.

"Don't you dare let her anywhere a shop." Kowalski barely masked his sigh of relief. However, he'd only been mentally complementing himself on his narrow escape for but a few precious seconds, when his joy was overshadowed by more foreboding thoughts. Kowalski knew, no matter how annoying Doris could be when one wanted to accomplish something, Blowhole would never let him leave alive. He and his mysterious partners for some reason had other plans for him and his team, probably more painful than what Blowhole had in store. He had to get into that lab, and find out just what was going on.


	5. A Rhino, Two Gorrillas, and an Ostrich

"Hey you!" Julian pointed at a man sitting on one of the far benches, doing his best 'tough cop' impression. The excitement of being part of an official investigation had gotten to the tech mogul's head.

"You talkin' to me, buddy boy?" the man replied angrily.

"Yes, you," Julian replied, unaffected by the threatening tone, "I wanna talk to you…" Julian motioned towards the room behind him.

"If you wouldn't mind stepping this way, sir." Maurice interrupted in a more polite tone before Julian upset the burly man further.

* * *

"…Yeah, I caught the girl," the man, who'd introduced himself as Roy answered, "That guy tossed her out the window just before the roof collapsed."

"Hm, I see…" Julian looked down at his notepad, trying to look thoughtful, though he was really drawing caricatures of the different people he sat in on their interview with. Julian thought the tough looking fire fighter, dressed in jeans and a grey t-shirt resembled a rhino and decided to draw him as such, "Now, what did de girl look like? Was she like, totally hot or…"

"Can you just tell us exactly what you saw?" Rockgut asked, counting down the witnesses, until he could end the investigation and hopefully not have to endure Julian's presence further. Letting him sit in on the interviews had been a condition for receiving under the table funding, but Rockgut was now starting to wish he'd had the sense to turn down the offer and try and get the ok from his superiors.

"Well, like I said, I didn't see much of that group until they tossed the girl out the window, and as previously mentioned," Roy flashed an exasperated glare in Julian's direction, "I caught her. Well, I attended to her burns and stuff, then passed her on to the paramedics. After that, I helped with the clean-up, until," Now it was Rockgut's turn to receive a dirty look, "Mr 'top secret' over there covered the whole place in 'do not cross. Trespassers will be imprisoned for life' tape and sent in his, what were they, moon men?"

"A more specialist clean-up team. Now, you say you saw the roof collapse. Did you actually see it collapse on the team?"

"Nobody could get outa that fire alive, an' that was the only way out..."

"No, no, NOT DE FEEEEEET!" MORT screeched spontaneously. The three other men in the room all turned to an embarrassed looking Julian, holding MORT a few inches above his feet.

"I ah… just wanted to see what he'd do if I…" Maurice gave Julian a warning look, "I think I'd better shut up now." Julian put MORT back in his pocket.

"Did you see the roof collapse on them or not?"

"No, I didn't see them 'actually' die, but it's pretty obvious what happened."

* * *

"We didn' see nothin', we didn' do nothing' and this speech had not been…"

"Shut up or I will give you something to be worried about." Rockgut threatened.

"Yeah, mister, what he said." Julian concurred, though the interviews had lost interest to him several hours ago.

"You are in for a world of pain…" Bada growled.

"Nice gorilla," Julian squeaked, backing away. Maurice winced, turning away. He didn't want to watch this.

"Ooooo King Julian's in trouble." MORT exclaimed, not realising that a beating to Julian would result in damage to the small device.

"What did you just call us?" Bing stood up from the table.

"Freudian slip of the tongue," Rockgut nodded to the drawing of two gorillas sitting on Julian's empty seat, "Now, you two were spectators the night the house burned down. What did you see?" the two men looked at each other.

"We didn'…"

"Answer me," _Or I'll set Rico on you _Rockgut almost finished out of habit, but then Rico wasn't there, was he. If Rockgut wasn't so focused on seeming intimidating, he would have slapped himself. He was a senior agent; he didn't have time for sentimentality.

"Alright, alright, we did see somethin', but we didn' do nothin'," Bada replied.

"Yeah, there was this guy, he was comin' outa some tunnel thing at the back a' the house." Bing elaborated.

"Was it any of these men?" Rockgut handed the two witnesses a group photograph of the team.

"Kinda hard to tell," Bing answered, "there was all a' that smoke an' whatnot."

"What are you two, stupidy or somethin'?" Ringtail burst out, "You see one of de Pengu…"

"That's classified, Mr King." Rockgut warned.

"… De _victims_ comin' outa a burning house, and you just keep walkin' like, _oh, dat is so completely normal_." Julian rolled his eyes.

"Where we come from, you don' wanna see too much." Bing replied seriously.

"Yeah, an anyways, dose mooks was doin' all kinds'a strange stuff all hours o' da night," Bada continued, "We kinda stopped noticin'."

* * *

"Please don't remind me of him," the woman sobbed, "Don't remind me of poor Rico."

"Hm…" Julian eyed the woman, before whispering, "What are you thinking MORT, does she look more like an ostrich or a flamingo?"

"Definitely an ostrich." MORT whispered back. The gangly woman raised an eyebrow at the talking device.

"You were peering over the fence at the time the fire broke out," Rockgut began the interview in the same manner as the previous 50, "What did you see?"

"Oh Rico, if only you understood..."

"I give up." Rockgut muttered, sick of the woman's meaningless answers and annoying nasal voice, "Next!"

* * *

"What's that?" Marlene asked, pointing to a blur at the edge of the screen. Skipper was watching crackly black and white footage of a bank from 1972, as he had been pretty much all day.

"What's what?" Skipper asked. He'd gone over the film at least a hundred times, and seen nothing out of the ordinary.

"Rewind… yeah, that guy in the corner." The two stared at the blurred figure.

"It's just a guy in a trench coat." Skipper objected.

"No, he's one of you. An agent."

"What?!"

"See, the way he's looking at everyone?"

"We aren't that obvious..."

"Yes you are. Now zoom in and enhance it." Skipper obeyed. What did he have to lose? As soon as Skipper saw just who he was looking at, his expression changed.

"It couldn't be… but it would make sense…" Skipper muttered incredulously. Immediately he stood up, opened the door of the apartment and was about to knock on the door when it opened, revealing just the scientist he was looking for.

"Listen, Skipper, I have to talk to you about..."

"It can wait," Kowalski could tell from Skipper's tone that, as urgent as what he had to say was, he didn't have a chance of getting Skipper to listen, "Get me Rockgut's personal file."

"What!"

"Hack the database, sneak into the building and steal the hard copy, I don't care, just get me it."

"Skipper, I could get the file, but…"

"But what?"

"It would be risky. There would be a high probability that…"

"I don't care, get me the file. I need to know where Rockgut was posted on November 27th, 1972."

"Oh, that's easy. I don't need his file for that…"

"The official records have been faked, even his classified file was faked. I need the super classified one. He couldn't have gotten to that."

"Alright, I'll try…"

"Thanks." Skipper turned back towards his apartment.

"Skipper, I needed to talk to you. About Private."


	6. Eyes in the Back of His Head

Private sulked in the bedroom, seated on his bunk. He could here bits and pieces of the conversation outside the door.

"…Private… always so… nice…"

"…completely trustworthy…"

"…don't know what hitting sixteen does to kids…"

The door opened.

"Alright Private," Skipper's expression was stern, "What do you have to say for yourself?" Private sat there in silence, "You know that our team does not tolerate such childish behaviour," Private suddenly found the floor incredibly fascinating, "I made it clear, when I took you in, that you would be trading in your childhood. With any other kid, your actions would be disappointing but acceptable. But, taking your friends for a joy ride in the team's car, you've caused an unacceptable security breach, not to mention preventing me from continuing with what just might be a very important case! If Rockgut was aware of your actions, those three families would be watched for several years, just in case. That's nine agents who wouldn't be available for more important field work due to your…"

"My actions?" Private looked up at Skipper, "I didn't do anything!"

"Really, Private?" skipper raised an eyebrow. The kid was a terrible liar.

"I didn't…!" Skipper tossed him back his phone, which had been confiscated.

"Call them, Private. We're going to clean this up once and for all."

* * *

"Hey, Amarillo!" Private greeted, though despite his best efforts, his voice lacked enthusiasm.

"You okay there, Tux?" the teen asked in his southern accent as he marched through the door. Arthur Armadillo was one of Private's closest friends, as well as the one of the ones who allegedly took a joy ride in the team's car. Private had met the boy at his home schooling group.

"Yeah." Private stepped aside to let Amarillo, who was not unaware of his fate, enter the apartment.

"Private? Is this some kind of joke?" Barry marched angrily down the hall. He'd met Barry Smith at a basket weaving workshop, claiming only to be there to 'bully the wimps at the sissy convention', though Private suspected the seventeen year old had other reasons for attending. He'd gone through with his threat, generally ruining the whole weekend workshop until Private had realised Barry was only acting that way as a desperate cry for attention from his constantly working parents, and decided to befriend him.

"He's as serious as a super serious dart frog, that's bein'… um…serious." Amarillo replied.

"Well, shall we go in and watch your dad waste his time." Barry rolled his eyes.

"Alright, you three," Skipper sat down in a chair across from them, looking seemingly relaxed, "Make it easy on yourselves and tell me exactly what you were doing last night."

"We already told you," Private answered for the trio, "We all went over to Barry's place to study." Skipper stood up from his chair, pacing the room. They were going to be difficult.

"The why aren't Barry's parents able to confirm this?" skipper asked.

"Because they weren't there," Amarillo answered, slightly intimidated by Private's father's cold glare.

"Like they're ever there." Barry muttered. Suddenly Skipper stopped, scrutinising Barry. There was something familiar about him, that bright red shirt and blue jeans. Like he'd seen a photograph of him somewhere, he just couldn't recall where.

"None of you are going to confess, are you?" Skipper turned the glare on all three. Barry sat there unaffected, a confident smile on his face. Amarillo was the complete opposite, noticeably squirming in his seat. Private's face was emotionless, "Alright, I'll prove it."

Skipper, the three boys, Kowalski and Rico stood before what seemed like a blank wall. Well, it was until Skipper placed his hand on one section. A blue light moved up and down across his palm, scanning it.

"Palm print: recognised. Welcome Skipper." A computerised voice with no discernible source answered. They walked down the concrete spiral steps, skipper leading. Finally, after what seemed like decades (Skipper had purposely taken the stairs instead of the elevator, the silence would help to unnerve them) they reached the weapons storage area, which Skipper walked past, the door was shut and he doubted Private had allowed them to see it, and continued to the car park. How he had managed to build this under the apartment, was still a mystery to Private.

"Tux, your dad's gotta be nuts," Amarillo muttered, "It's not like he can prove nothin'." The six strong party stopped before the team's sleek black car.

"I can't prove nothin'?" Kowalski scoffed, "You are telling the world's foremost forensic investigator…"

"Bragging, Kowalski," Skipper reminded, then turned to Rico, "Alright, Rico, give me the shoes." The Rico removed three shoes from his knapsack.

"Wait a minute, is that my shoe?!" Barry exclaimed.

"Yes, it is. Kowalski was examining them while we were having our little chat," Skipper answered, "Now, Kowalski, would you please report your findings?"

"You don't have the right to steal my shoe!" Amarillo protested.

"Yes sir," Kowalski looked down at some pieces of paper he'd taken with him. He handed each of the boys a sheet, along with their shoe.

"That looks like a photocopy of my shoe..." Private looked at the paper, and then at his shoe.

"Yes, extremely observant of you, Private." Skipper answered sarcastically.

"Those are copies of the clearest samples of the latent prints found on the floor of the hallway," Kowalski answered, "If you look at the two, you will see that the class characteristics obviously match, and…"

"We get the idea. They're the same," Skipper interrupted, "Now, let's reconstruct the crime."

Kowalski walked over to the end of the hallway they had entered from.

"I found three sets of footprints, consistent with your shoes," Kowalski walked back towards the group, demonstrating where they'd walked the previous night, "You walked from the door, to the front of the car. Barry had stolen skipper's keys from his coat earlier. The keys contained only his prints. The key also contained traces of clay, indicating that he may have also copied it,"

"You never said you copied it?" Private hissed. Some of Skipper's paranoia had evidently rubbed off on him.

"What? I thought if we did this again it would be easier if I made a copy." Barry defended.

Kowalski indicated to the door handle of the car, "Arthur then opened the passenger's seat, but was pushed back by Barry. He stumbled backwards, catching himself on the side of the car, as indicated by fingerprints. Private then got in the driver's seat, prints on the wheel confirm this, Barry took the passenger's seat, and Arthur took the one directly behind Private." The two boys looked at Kowalski, completely astonished.

"Barry and Amarillo have ridden in the car before!" Private objected hurriedly, "The prints could have been left from before!"

"Car GPS tracker show that the car drove out of the parking lot, around the city, then to the empty lots behind the Consolidated Amalgamated warehouses." Kowalski answered.

"We did take the car out for a drive," Private gushed. He was already feeling guilty about what he'd done, "I never thought…"

"Shut up, Private." Barry hissed.

"We just drove it around, that's all," Amarillo answered.

"No," Kowalski held out a distorted bullet in a clear plastic bag, "Private activated the machine guns mounted under the lights. Bullets found in the empty lot match those fired from the car."

Amarillo stared at Kowalski, unsure of what to do. Barry had the classic 'hands in the cookie jar' scowl, and Private looked like he was about to cry. Private had always prided on himself on being well behaved, but Barry and Amarillo kept teasing him that he couldn't drive. After that, Private had gotten carried away, showing off several of the weapons systems.

"I'm so sorry Skippah!" Private apologised, "I've been so thoughtless and…"

"Save the mushy talk, you're grounded."

* * *

"Kowalski, does that Barry kid look familiar too you?" Skipper asked, staring blankly at the screen in front of him as Kowalski waited for the files to decrypt.

"Not particularly, but then he could be like Amarillo, a kid we met on a mission. We've been on so many, it's hard to tell." Kowalski replied.

"No, if he was a kid we met on a mission, Private would have remembered him; he remembers everyone," Skipper tried to think back to where he'd seen him. That pompous grin was somehow familiar, "Check his photo…"

"The files have been decrypted, Skipper." Kowalski interrupted, pointing to the screen. For a few minutes the two sat in silence going through the documents.

"So, that could have been Rockgut…" Skipper thought aloud, staring off into space, "it's not official, it could have been and off the books mission, but it would make sense. He was in Geneva in '72"

"Well, someone with Rockgut's resources would be able to cover up the disappearance of the money. But why open up an investigation into it later? And why blame it on the Squirrel?"

"No idea," skipper stood up from the computer, "I'm sorely tempted to break cover and ask him."

"I could set up some mirrors so you would appear to be some kind of ghost…"

"And Rockgut would turn around and say 'stop actin' like an idiot, cupcake'." Skipper smiled fondly at the man's blunt and to the point attitude.

Private poked his head into the room, "Um, Skippah, there's a letter here for you."

"Give it to Rico to incinerate, or if it's a bill, I'll get around to it later." Skipper answered bluntly. There were too many questions on his mind already; he didn't need to have to worry about their financial status.

"It says its super extremely top secret," Private answered, turning to leave, "They've spelt extremely wrong, though. It's missing the 'e' before the 'l'." On hearing this, Skipper's expression immediately changed.

"Wait, Private, give me that letter!" Skipper ordered sharply. Private obeyed, surprised by the suddenness of the request. Skipper snatched the letter from the younger member of the group. Kowalski had only seen Skipper afraid twice before in his life. He recognised that same look now, as Skipper read through the letter, "No… that's impossible." Skipper folded the letter and placed it in its pocket before anyone else could see it. He immediately stood up, his eyes lingering for a split second on the photograph on his desk, before grabbing his coat, and walking briskly out of the apartment, that same haunted look on his face.

**In future chapters I plan to bring back Kitka, the Blue Hen and other romantic interests. However, I'm not sure if I should weight the story towards the romance plot or towards the mystery. I'd love your input on this. **

**I've brought back Barry because I kind of like the charecter, and I only gave him a small part in the previous story.**


	7. Living a Lie?

"What happened, K'walski?" Private asked, Skipper long gone. Kowalski didn't answer, his mind elsewhere. He'd seen the way Skipper had looked at the photograph. _The_ Photograph. Kowalski's gazed shifted to the image in question, in which the young Skipper sat perched on the jeep, his two late teammates on either side. The leader's signature confident smirk seemed only to rub salt in the wound the single out of place letter had created, reminding Kowalski of simpler, happier times. Private, thankfully, eyed his elder quizzically, completely unaware of significance of both the photograph and the misspelled word.

Skipper marched into the empty ally. It was obviously some kind of trick. At first he'd been stunned by the message inside. He'd only left the apartment as it had, on some level, gotten his hopes up that those two knuckleheads might just be alive, and by now, he had come so far he might as well see it through. The misspelt letter had been their sign, a way of identifying that one of them had sent the letter. They'd sworn never to tell anyone about it; at least, that was what Rockgut had told him. Obviously, someone had found out. At least, that was far more likely than that the one thing he was certain happened on that fateful day actually hadn't happened at all.

Skipper stopped at one of the commercial dumpsters behind one of the buildings backing on to the ally. He opened the lid, and climbed inside, falling through the holographic garbage and into the room below. Skipper was surprised the hologram was still working after all those years.

"Alright, I'm here," skipper called into the darkness, the cobwebs brushing against his face as he took another step into the disused safe house. Then he added, for the benefit of Blowhole, who was doubtless smirking somewhere in the shadows: "And you're going to wish you hadn't used the sign to invite me. I'm a little old to believe in ghost stories."

"Ghost stories?" a frighteningly familiar voice questioned from the darkness surrounding him, though not the voice he had been anticipating, any of them. In fact, this one was by far more terrifying.

"See, I told you Manfridi," another voice, equally familiar, hissed, "They've gotten to him. He really believes them."

"Don't be silly, Johnson, he was obviously just acting," Skipper swung his flashlight in the direction of the voices, "Still, nice touch with the nightmares of our horrifying demise, Skipps."

"No!" Skipper stumbled backwards until his back hit the concrete wall behind him, "You're dead! I remember! I saw you die!" the two men stepped forward and into the light cast by the still open dumpster, "You have to be some part of one of Blowhole's insane schemes… or… or a space squid…!"

"We're not space squids," Manfridi answered, "You can cut the act."

"He's not acting Manfridi," Johnson hissed, before continuing in a more audible voice, "No offence, but you've got a thousand memories of how we died. How do you know we even did?"

Skipper stared open mouthed at the two men in front of him. Manfridi, or supposedly Manfridi, hadn't changed much from the photograph Skipper kept on his desk. His light brown hair was still cut in that ridiculous vintage style, his uniform fashionably rugged as ever, and he still towered over Skipper. Johnson was a few inches shorter than his companion, and still towered over Skipper, but the complete opposite. There wasn't a single fibre on that man's being that didn't conform to regulation, and Kowalski often theorised that the subatomic particles that made up the fibres were equally rule abiding.

"I told you Manfridi, they got to him!" Johnson hissed again.

"Ok, Johnson, you might possibly… in some incredibly vague way… have a point." Manfridi admitted, though it was obvious the two had probably bet a lot of fish on the fact.

"Manfridi… Johnson… how…?" Skipper stuttered, still paralyzed by the situation.

"Well Skipps, there's really no pretty way of saying this," Manfridi answered, "You've been brainwashed."

"First things first, though," Johnson added, "You need to know what really happened in Denmark."

"We can't tell him that, Johnson," Manfridi objected, "He wouldn't be able to handle it."

"Well the longer they control him…"

Skipper cleared his throat, interrupting the two, "I am in the room, by the way." Their constant bickering gave his brain time to reboot, or at least regain some of his composure.

"Sorry Skipps." The two replied in unison. Now that was familiar. Those two never did seem to have grown up. Wait, how did he know…?

"Manfridi, why don't we tell him in bits and pieces?" Johnson suggested before Skipper could finish his thought, "that might be a bit more manageable."

"Sounds like a good idea," Manfridi cast a careful glance over Skipper, considering what he should start with and how much he should tell him, "You remember when the 'copter was shot down? After the mission started to go south?"

"Yeah, at least I think." Skipper replied, equally cautious with his words.

"Well, you were knocked unconscious when you hit your head on the side of the door when we all jumped."

"Yeah," Skipper slightly red, "That was… embarrassing."

"We all landed in that lake. The three of us dragged you to shore," Johnson continued, "Then we set up camp..."

"We only left you alone for a few minutes." Manfridi interrupted as if apologising for some heinous crime he had yet to announce.

"When we came back, they'd already got you and were driving away," Johnson continued sadly, "we didn't know what they did to you until recently."

"Slow down boys, who abducted me?" Skipper asked, "And why don't I remember any of this?"

"The enemy of course," Manfridi replied, "they tortured you for months, but they never got anything out of you. So they tried a different approach."

"They created a team, and then slowly convinced you that this was your team, that the three of -" Manfridi elbowed Johnson, interrupting the story, "Sorry, that we'd died in Denmark and that you'd been posted to their fabricated team."

"Then they sent you on missions and when you trusted this team with your life, had them try to get the information out of you. Luckily, the information had been lost to the brainwashing process, buried in a series of ever changing memories, so they never got their hands on it. Still, you were a good agent, so they kept, all the time convinced you were working for Penguin, sending you on more missions against the real Penguin etc."

Skipper eyed the two, trying to seem sceptical, at least, not looking like he felt. He wasn't even sure how he felt. It was just so sudden and… absurd? "You're trying to tell me… my whole life… has been a lie?"

"Yup," the two replied in unison, "Pretty much."

"Well, there's one problem with your story: you say my whole 'team' are LEOPARDSEAL agents, but I remember Kowalski and Rico from my cadet days." Skipper objected, clinging to the hope Manfridi and Johnson were somehow mistaken. Rico, Kowalski, and especially young Private, couldn't be enemy agents. That just wasn't possible.

"Read these," Johnson tossed skipper two manila folders both stamped: top secret, and then continued before Skipper could open them: "Rico was taken on an earlier mission, and we can only surmise that they did the same to him as they did to you. His… unbalanced mind is consistent with the results of some of the psychological attacks they were using at the time. Lucky for you, they'd gotten better at the whole brainwashing thing by the time they got to you."

"Kowalski fell in love with Doris Blowhole whose brother was working with LEOPARDSEAL at the time, and went double. So you see…" Manfridi continued, at least until he realised Skipper was already gone. Skipper obviously wasn't taking the news well. He never opted for the ninja disappearing trick unless he felt completely trapped, or had gotten sick of the presence of Julian King.

Private was seated on the couch, watching the seconds tick by on the clock as he waited for Skipper to return. When he'd left the house, Skipper had seemed so… Stunned? Angry? Haunted? The sound of a key in the lock had Private running out of the living room and to the door, just in time to see the subject of his anxiety enter.

"Skippah, are you alright?" Private asked. Skipper was looking at Private, as if he was some kind of illusion; trying to discern weather he was real or not.

"Just fine," skipper answered gruffly, making his decision. He brushed past Private and into the apartment.

"Hello Skipper," Kowalski poked his head out of the lab, "Was it…?"

"An honest spelling mistake," Skipper lied, hanging up his coat, "Nigel had some more papers he wanted me to take a look at."

"Skipper, are those marked top secret?" Kowalski motioned to the manila folders Skipper held in a death grip, "I don't think Nigel has that kind of clearance anymore…"

"Recently declassified," Skipper interrupted turning around and exiting the apartment, so desperate to leave he didn't even grab his coat, "I'm going for a walk. Tell Marlene I'll be back late." He slammed the door behind him.


	8. Annual Jr Frenemies Get Together

"I believe it'ssss your turn to hossst annual the Jr. villainssss' get together," Savio commented, leaning casually against the brick wall of the converted warehouse the group was using as it's meeting place.

"Oh, really?" Geert asked genuinely surprised, though slightly annoyed at being interrupted from one of his increasingly frequent staring off into space moments, "By the way, we like to be called 'frenemys', not villains these days."

"You didn't remember," Savio criticized, ignoring Geert's correction. In his opinion, what you called a person didn't really matter, it was how effective they were that counted, "It'sss a week from now and you haven't even picked a venue. What am I sssupposed to tell the kidsss? They're already ssso gloomy now their parentsss are busssy with the project…"

"Since when do you care, Savio," Geert's eyes continued their grid search of the wall, though he knew every crack and crevice by heart, "Right, how many of them are there?"

"Well, there'sss all the sssenior lobstersss' kidsss, ssso that makesss 57. Then there'sss the older Ratsss' kidsss, and ssssome of the younger Ratsss. That makesss 127 in total."

"Hm…"

"Then sssome of the ssspecialists are under eighteen," Savio continued, "Barry…"

"I'm not a kid!" an angry voice shouted from another room.

"…perhapssss not Barry…"

"Hm…" Geert continued to stare off into space, despite the fact under normal circumstances, he would voice his agreement, not being far from Annual Jr. Frenemys Get Together age himself.

"… On sssecond thought, I don't think any of the otherssss would consssider themssselvessss…"

"Hm…"

"Are you even paying attention?" Savio snapped.

"Hm? Oh, yes. We were on to the Rats right?"

"Tell me Geert, why do you hate Ssskipper?" Savio asked, his expression slightly concerned. It was obvious why Geert was so distracted. He always was when he was working on a plan to destroy skipper, but not actively working on his revenge at that point in time.

"Don't you know?" Geert replied, no longer day dreaming. He didn't like where this conversation was headed.

"I do. Sssstill, tell it your way," Savio replied, "Just to ssssatisfy my own perssssonal curiossssity."

"Fine," Geert complied, with more than a note of sarcasm, "Skipper thoughtlessly murdered my uncle, and left me alive so I could be haunted by it for the rest of my life. Satisfied?"

"Hm… Interesting. I heard that your late uncle thoughtlessssly murdered Ssskipper's teammatesss, and left him alive ssso he could be haunted by it." Geert's fist stopped only a few inches from Savio's face, his façade of calm control and restraint, for the first time, broken.

"Who's side are you on?!"

"I'm not taking sidesss," Savio replied, giving no indication that Geert's violent reaction had unnerved him, which it hadn't, "Ssstill, I find it interesssting that you expressss your insssecurity as hatred of Ssskipper. I sssuppose it is your way of hiding from the fact that Hansss never consssidered you good enough. By defeating Ssskipper, though you ssseemed, until recently, to think you could do thisss by blind rage alone, you will sssucceed where you uncle failed, thussss proving yoursssself."

"That's not true." Geert growled, his body tense. It was now even more obvious than before how hard he was trying to remain in control.

"Hm, isssn't it?" Savio was the total opposite of Geert, calm and collected, a slight smile on his face, "Very well, why are you trying sssso hard not to expressss your frusssstration and hit me? Issss it becaussse your anger causssed you to fail a training exercissse, which you ssstill believe was the reason Hansss deemed you unworthy? Isss that why even when we were having ssso much fun exacting our pound of fleshhh from Sssskipper, you ssstill kept yoursssself so controlled? Becaussse you aren't worthy to ssshow emotionsss?"

Savio blocked Geert's expertly placed, if more sloppy than usual, punch. Immediately Geert realised what he'd done, and his hand returned to his side, fist still clenched.

"I suppose it gives you some kind of sick pleasure psychoanalysing me?" Geert demanded through clenched teeth.

"Yessss, it'sss a hobby of mine," Savio smiled sickeningly sweetly, "Although, you will be pleasssed to know, you lassssted longer than Hanssss."

* * *

"Well, if it isn't the almighty Doris," Barry greeted sarcastically. He waltzed into the near empty attack planning room, "I thought it was 'Little B' who was going to tell me phase two, since I completed phase one _ahead _of schedule."

"Barry, I have no idea what you and my brother's mysterious plan is," Doris replied, her voice echoing slightly in the high ceilinged room, "I wanted your advice on something personal. Little B, which for your information is a name that he would probably annihilate any person other than me he hears call him it, has asked me to play a part in his scheme. It would be… openly contradictory to Kowalski's existence."

"So you advice on your love life?" Barry concluded, taking a seat at one of the empty desks and putting his feet up on the computer. Doris winced slightly at the action, "Don't worry, babe, the almighty 6% mastermind hasn't wiped me off the face of the earth yet. So, this begs the million dollar question, why come to me?"

"You're the only person I can talk to who's more messed up than me," Doris replied. Barry's expression, which was normally in a perpetual sarcastic grin, darkened slightly.

"Believe me, Doris, you don't know messed up," immediately he returned to his annoying, 'know it all' smirk, "anyway, I don't think you're being truthful with yourself. I mean how many times have you betrayed the guy? I think you're caving in under pressure from your brother, and starting to doubt your decision to go moony eyed for one of the chaps on the right side of the law. It's either that, or you actually think Blowhole is gonna pull it off."

"Guilty as charged." Doris admitted, forgetting to specify which charge, as she was starting to feel slightly dizzy watching the teenager spin around on his chair.

"Offence no. 1 then," Barry stopped spinning, leaning slightly to the side, resting his elbow on the armrest and his head on his hand, "fill me in on the details."

"Little B keeps saying I should date someone… someone like us…"

"I see you've cottoned on to Geert's 'don't call us villains' campaign. Who's he suggesting?"

"First he suggested Clemson…"

"Obsessive and dull."

"Then recently he'd been suggesting Geert…"

"Obsessive and weird." Barry concluded, "Now, Miss Manipulated, these all sound like your brother trying to create strategic alliances."

"I know, it's just… what if he's right? What if I have to pick a side? I can only betray Kowalski so many times and… what if either one of them succeeds?"

"Hm…" Barry actually considered this for a few seconds, instead of immediately voicing a comment, "Your brother has a point, but you could just ask your brother if you can be left out of his schemes."

"I don't want to…"

"Chicken," Doris' expression changed to one of shock at the remark, but they both knew it was an accurate description, "Well, if you're too scared to do anything, all I can say is, stick with Kowalski. If you do decide to go with Dr Mammal fish's…"

"Don't call him that."

"…Blowhole's advice, well, you may very well spend the rest of your life stuck with Clemson. Anyway, apart from the whole revenge thing, Kowalski and the team are technically neutral now. In fact, you could say they're on the same side as us, faking your death to get out of Penguin technically makes you a rogue agent," Barry picked up a pen from the desk, tossing it at one of the lobster's heads. The lobster immediately turned around, glaring, but Barry ignored him, "By the way, if Geert can call him Dr Mammal fish, so can I."

* * *

Marlene had spent the day going over documents. Skipper had only started to get so distant since he started the case. If the answer to what was upsetting him was anywhere, apart from the letter, which was gone, it could only be in the files he got from Nigel.

"Red Squirrel

Real Name: Unknown

Threat Level: Top Priority

Hair Colour: Red

Distinguishing Marks: Eye patch

Country of Origin: Unknown

Other: An obsession with Agent Buck Rockgut. Otherwise, completely unpredictable.

Age: Unknown

Status: Unknown…"

Everything was all 'unknown'. This guy really was as slippery as Skipper complained. Still, Skipper must have seen something, read between the lines somehow.

"Is everything to do with Penguin always unknown," she mused.

"Not really, they usually have pretty extensive files on everyone," Kowalski answered, startling Marlene, who hadn't realised he was there. He began to sort through the disorderly pile of papers until he found four folders marked: Deceased. He opened the folder at the top of the pile.

"Agent B. Kowalski

Name: Bertram Kowalski

Rank: Agent (special abilities)

Potential Threat Level: High

Hair Colour: Black

Distinguishing Marks: Tattoo of Doris…"

"Um, right, that's me," Kowalski quickly covered that section of the page with his hand, before closing the file and leaving the room, presumably to somehow remove the information. Marlene opened the next file.

"Private

Name: Timothy Douglass (investigation suggested)

Rank: Junior Agent (special abilities indicated)

Potential Threat Level: High

Hair Colour: Black

Distinguishing Marks: None

Country of Origin: United Kingdom

Other: Extremely predictable

Age: 23 (investigation suggested)

Status: Deceased…"

Marlene knew Private's story from Skipper, so didn't read the whole file. Still, she was intrigued by Rico, so opened the file. Unlike the previous two files, there were gaps in the information, but the most important pieces were all there. However, Skipper's file was an entirely different story.

"Skipper

Name: Unknown

Rank: Unknown/Classified

Potential Threat Level: Extremely High

Hair Colour: Black (doubts as to real colour)

Distinguishing Marks: None

Country of Origin: Unknown

Other: Unknown (see psychoanalysis)

Age: Unknown (estimated between 25 and 30)

Status: Unknown…"

This Marlene found strange. She'd always thought it was just her he kept saying classified to. Well, she felt slightly better, at least she wasn't being left out of any hilarious secrets, right? Noticing Kowalski's presence once again, she looked up, though he answered her query before she had time to voice it:

"Don't ask me, he's never told me anything."

"Why do you think he's so secretive?" asked. She'd never liked knowing so little about Skipper, she still occasionally asked him his real name, but seeing the official files equally ignorant seemed to make the fact only more unnerving.

"Well, as you may have noticed, he is more paranoid than the average for his profession," Kowalski commented, "Although some have considered the theory he doesn't know himself, and simply does not wish to admit this."

"Like Denmark?"

"Well, he remembers multiple versions, often merging with the death of Manfridi and Johnson, but similar principle."

Marlene's attention was suddenly drawn to another file on the desk, similar to the teams' though it wasn't marked deceased. It was her file. Cautiously she opened it, but it was quickly snatched from her hand by Kowalski. However, she'd managed to catch a few of the words, probably the ones Kowalski hadn't wanted her to see, as she wished she hadn't.

"Kowalski?"

"Hm?"

"Do you think I love him?"

**I can't seem to find the superscript, so if you're wondering about Private's strange name and age (Private is still 16, just to clarify), Skipper set him up with an alias that was old enough to join Penguin in the Spies Next Door.**


	9. Alone

_"Antonio, where are you going?!" Marlene asked, more than a hint of worry in her voice._

_"To see the Penguins, as you call them," he replied, his tone indicated that he hadn't calmed much since their argument, only a few hours ago, "I think a serious conversation with their leader is long overdue."_

_"Antonio, you can't change the way we feel," Marlene pleaded, "I love him."_

_"I guess you have never heard of Stockholm syndrome, Marlene," Antonio snapped, "you don't really love him."_

Of all the things Antonio had said, that still haunted her to this day. She'd almost succeeded in pushing it to some obscure corner of her mind, but seeing it mentioned under 'Notes for Further Investigation' seemed to give the poorly thought out statement more weight.

"What do you mean, do you love him?" Kowalski asked, slightly stunned. Of course she loved Skipper.

"You guys held me, cut off from reality, for two weeks. After that, I spent six hours having to listen to Clemson brag to himself, and another hour hanging from a crane," Marlene replied.

"I don't…" Kowalski had to say, it certainly was plausible. More than plausible, all the facts seemed to point in that direction, "Didn't you say you intended to ask him out before all of that happened?"

"I was going to ask him out because I thought he was cute and, at the time, a nice guy," Marlene answered, not afraid to express what was the obvious truth, "I don't know – if I hadn't listened to your meeting – if a casual interest still would have become something more."

"I guess it's hard to tell," Kowalski's brain raced to find another possible explanation, or at least something to make the theory a little less watertight, "Although, you only ever saw Skipper three times while you were considered a liability, and only on one of those was he mildly threatening you."

"Mildly?!" Marlene exclaimed. She'd always considered the experience one of the worst in her life, "What do you guys call extremely?"

"You do not want to know," Kowalski answered, "However, the rest of us you saw almost every day."

Marlene considered the new information. It was obvious Kowalski was just looking for any way to exonerate Skipper, but like most of his arguments, he did have a point. She had to say, she was glad her fears had not been confirmed, "I guess you're right. If your logic holds, I should have fallen for you, Private or Rico."

"Though Private is a bit young," Kowalski mused, "However, I think you knew, at least a few days into it that we weren't going to hurt you."

"I still have my doubts about Rico."

"We all have our doubts about Rico," Kowalski concurred, "Well, I'm pretty certain I've settled your doubts about your love for Skipper," the scientist examined the neat piles he had sorted the documents and folder's into during the conversation, "that reminds me, I still have to complete my research on the alarm systems before I can investigate Blowhole's safe. My date with Doris is in," Kowalski checked his watch, "9 hours 32 minutes 17 seconds, which is the perfect opportunity."

"I hate that guy."

"You do?" Kowalski scoffed, "He's the only thing standing between me and the love of my life."

Suddenly the two froze at the sound of a door slamming. Marlene immediately jumped up, intending to greet the newcomer, who was doubtless her husband.

"Put the files back first," Kowalski hissed, grabbing her arm and pulling her back before she could reach the door handle, "Skipper's not going to like you going through them." Marlene immediately began to replace the files. She'd just shut the drawer of the filing cabinet when the door opened.

* * *

The first thing Skipper noticed the moment he woke was the smell of frying bacon. There was something wrong with the feel of the bed as well. It was too smooth. He opened his eyes and looked around. This certainly wasn't his room. Still, this wasn't the first time he'd woken up in a strange place.

He stood up, though a wave of dizziness and slight nausea forced him to remain seated. He didn't remember having any drinks last night, though mackerel knows he needed them. Now that he thought about it, he didn't remember last night, and his discomfort was certainly not consistent with the splitting headache of a hangover. He didn't remember anything after…

"Good morning, sir," The door opened, and a smartly dressed butler entered, placing the clothes he'd worn the day before on a chair across from his bed, freshly laundered and pressed, "M'lady inquires as to whether you will be joining her for breakfast. She wishes me to inform you, that Anatole has prepared your favourite breakfast: pancakes with bacon and maple syrup, and strong black coffee containing six slices of fugu sashimi." The servant noticeably grimaced at the mention of coffee containing fish, "she seemed to imply that this information would probably have significant impact on your decision."

"Wait, just who's this 'm'lady'?" Skipper demanded. He was used to waking up in strange places, but not waking up in strange places where stuck up butlers, who seemed to be unaware of the concept of knocking, tempted him with pancakes.

"Why, Miss Kitka Romanov, sir," The man replied, showing a ghost of a surprised expression at the question.

"And, how did I get here?"

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

"_Well_, was I teleported?"

"No sir, you and Miss Romanov arrived together late last night."

"Where did we go?"

"I have no idea, sir."

Then suddenly a new fear gripped his heart, "And after we got here…"

"Certainly not, sir," The butler replied with conviction, "your behaviour was like that of two old school chums who'd returned from an intriguing lecture." Well, he certainly had a strange idea of fun, was the thought that quickly replaced his panic.

"Right, tell Kitka I'll join her in a couple of minutes, but she'd better have some answers."

"Will that be all, sir?"

"Yeah." The butler left the room, closing the door behind him. Immediately, skipper once again tried to stand, this time determined not to let the dizziness win. The battle to remain upright over, he checked the room for bugs, cameras, and hidden traps before getting dressed (the pyjama's certainly weren't his) and trying to find his way to the dining room.

"I want some answers," were the first words that left his lips as he took his seat at one of the antique chairs around the breakfast table.

"Answers? Didn't I tell you what you wanted to know?" she replied calmly, pouring syrup over her pancakes.

"Well that's the last thing I remember, coming to you," Skipper countered with unwarranted venom, though Kitka was the type who had to be nipped in the bud before they tried anything, "I certainly don't remember your answer."

"So what, exactly, is the last thing you remember?" Kitka asked, still seemingly unfazed by Skipper's menacing tone, "Maybe I can fill you in?"

"We met for coffee. I wanted to know if what Manfridi and Johnson said was true," Skipper answered, as he eyed the pancakes cautiously, "You were the only person I was in touch with at the time of the incident who wasn't directly involved."

"They aren't poisoned, darling," Kitka reached across the table; eating a forkful of the pancakes herself to confirm this, "Well, I believe I told you that their story was…" she paused for dramatic effect, "correct."

"Why should I believe you?" Skipper asked, taking a sip of his coffee. He needed the caffeine more than he cared about the potentially lethal fish. He was surprised he wasn't more, well um… surprised by the news, but he felt as if he'd heard it before, which he had, and was simply going over the information. His whole mind felt numb, "Why didn't you tell me what had happened, if we kept in touch back then? And none of that explains why I don't remember anything after I met you for coffee, and how I woke up here."

"Well, you were naturally startled by the news," Kitka answered soothingly, "and you were certainly in no state to return to the team. So we went down to The Lemurs for a couple of drinks, narrowly avoided Julian King who was shouting that zombie secret agents are returning from the grave to update our phones operating systems, and then came home. As for why I didn't tell you about your involuntary change of employer, I was out of the game, and I didn't have to do anything reckless make it out. Telling you what was really going on, well that would get LEOPARDSEAL on my case, and then I could say good bye to my early retirement," skipper glared at her, "alright, so you were working for 'the enemy' but you were a whole lot happier than you were at Penguin. Who was I to spoil it?"

"And this would be why I said we should see other people," skipper stated, almost in a monotone, "I was working for the enemy! What do I care if I'm happy, I was an agent of LEOPARDSEAL! That just isn't…" and now the information hit him like a ton of bricks. Young Private a LEOPARDSEAL agent? It just didn't make sense. And Marlene? "Is this just a trick to get me to leave Marlene?" Now there was a possible motive. He wouldn't put it past Kitka to try to her luck at manipulation.

"No. Like I said, I'm quite happy if you just keep living life, pretending you never heard this." Kitka replied, though her tone was slightly hurt, "you came to me." Skipper stood up from the table.

"Thanks for the pancakes, Kitka," Skipper finished his coffee, and then headed off down the hallway that looked like it travelled in the direction of the exit.

* * *

By now, skipper was riding the elevator to his apartment. Realising this he had the sudden urge to jump out at the next floor and run down the stairs and away from the HQ as fast as he possibly could. But he couldn't do that. He had the kind of problems that, if you ran, they'd run after you twice as fast. He'd run from Manfridi and Johnson, from his team, and from Kitka. He was still struggling to comprehend the news, yes, but he had to face reality.

However, one doubt kept lingering in his mind: if he was working for LEOPARDSEAL, then why had he done almost nothing in the past year remotely resembling a mission. Well, the only thing he could think of, and now that Kitka, who on matters like this he could trust, had confirmed Manfridi and Johnson's story, was that Kowalski and Rico had wanted out as much as him, and had escaped the control of LEOPARDSEAL in the burning building. At least, he wanted to believe that, but he couldn't take the chance it was just his mind desperately searching for some way to trust his team. He had to remain cautious, and certainly alone.

He opened the door, and the first sound that reached his ears was laughter, which he quickly recognised as Marlene's and Kowalski's. The voices were muffled as they came from his study at the end of the hall. Wait, why were they in there?

"…have fallen for you..." Marlene sighed.

For a few seconds the conversation descended into barely audible noise.

"…Well, I'm pretty certain I've settled your doubts about your love for Skipper…" A voice he was pretty sure was Kowalski's emerged from the noise.

"Tuna, I hate that guy."

"You do? He's the only thing standing between me and the love of my life."

Skipper slammed the door of the apartment louder than he intended. There was a slight shuffling sound in the study as he walked towards it. He opened the door.

Marlene stood stiffly by the filing cabinet, looking incredibly guilty. Kowalski was more relaxed, but then for them, lying was just as natural as telling the truth. Nowadays, it actually seemed to be easier.

"Skipper!" Marlene gushed, rushing forward and wrapping her arms around him, "Where have you been? We were all so worried?"

"Apparently," Skipper answered with a note of suspicion in his voice. He eyed the two with equal caution.

"Where were you?" She asked, slightly puzzled by his tone.

"I stayed the night in one of the safe houses," Skipper replied, his own ease at convincing his oldest friends only proving his point, "The case was starting to get to me and I needed time to digest the information."

"Next time, just tell me," She chided, fixing a strand of hair that had fallen out of place, "Private was so worried, he spent a good couple of hours looking for you." At this, if Skipper had any suspicions as to her guilt being merely circumstantial, these were immediately quashed. She just took his barely believable, oldest excuse in the book explanation and moved on, all but celebrating his absence? Didn't she care enough to at least be slightly suspicious?

"I think you'd better tell Rico you're back," Kowalski added, "You know how he gets when you just disappear."

"Yes, I guess I should," Skipper walked stiffly from the apartment. He was going to have to do a full search for bugs and possible enemy data storage areas. He had no doubts as to his 'team's' and even Marlene's alliances, but he still needed more data before he could act. He needed to find out their contacts, handler(s), how many other agents there were in similar positions to him, and how much was left of Rico's mind, the answer to that question determining whether it was worth taking Rico with him when he left, which he certainly was.


	10. Investigations

Private could hear muffled shouts from the room across from him. It was Barry. He'd been on the phone with his mother for less than a minute and already the troubled teenager was furious.

"…But mom, you promised…!" Abruptly, the shouting stopped and a very annoyed Barry stormed out of the room.

"She can't make it to the award ceremony, can she?" Private asked, hoping he was wrong. Barry could handle his parent's absence most of the time, but this meant a lot to him.

"Of course she's not," Barry snapped, "And of naturally she can't tell me _why _she can't. Probably feels too guilty to admit she just doesn't want to spend any time around me," he landed on one of the beanbags in the centre of his room, switching on his JulianConsole, "She could keel over and die for all I'd notice." Private winced slightly. That was exactly what he'd thought about his mother, and that was exactly what happened.

"I wouldn't say that." Private stated diplomatically. Barry seemed to realise his mistake.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"

"It's fine." Private had told Barry a doctored version of how he'd come to be with the team, leaving out all the secret agent stuff.

"How did she…"

"Stabbed twice in the chest, bled for three minutes," Private recounted, the bile rising in his throat. Skipper had described the wounds in graphic detail, but had forbidden him from seeing any photographs or reading any of the reports, "finished with a single shot to the head."

"Sounds a lot like the Hornet House assassinations." Barry pointed out, "I mean, it's kinda strange how she never screamed."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean, that was what they asked about the Hornet House," Barry continued, "all the guards were in the next room, and the guy lived a decent amount of time, two knife wounds just like your mother, before the killer shot him. Then all the guards came running when they heard the shot, but he was long gone. They never did work out how…"

"Rare nerve toxin paralysed the vocal cords leaving no trace post mortem." Private answered out of habit.

"Really? I never saw that in the papers." Barry replied. Private's virtual car ground against the side of the tunnel, his surprise causing him to release the controller. He really shouldn't have mentioned that.

"Um… my dad was one of the investigators… you know, back when he was in homicide." Private replied hurriedly. Skipper had given him the hornet house assassination case file to read, as an example of what a good agent could accomplish on a 'perfect day', a concept Private still found hard to understand.

"Well, maybe whoever was after your mom, you know to keep her from talking, hired the same assassin guy." Barry hypothesized.

"Skippah told me mum's death was an amateur job though," Private replied. Barry did have a point, but it couldn't have been the same guy. Private didn't actually know who the Hornet House assassin was, but he knew it was an official Penguin mission and Penguin agents don't work for hire.

"I dunno, I mean, it sounds pretty controlled to me," Barry replied, "two completely non-fatal wounds that hurt like crazy, then the killer suddenly remembers that he can use a gun a whole lot better than a knife, and shoots her? Plus, without the neurotoxin, how'd he keep her quiet? They would have found trace evidence or bruising if he'd gagged her."

"Did you go to med school without me noticing?" Private asked incredulously.

"Nah, I just read up on all that forensics stuff since that roommate of yours, Kowalski, caught us by tracking our foot prints," Barry replied calmly. If he was lying, he did a much better job of it than Private did, "Still, your mom's death sounds pretty suspicious. I don't know, maybe you should look into it."

* * *

"What do you mean you are cancelling-ed de investigation!?" Julian screamed. Rockgut figured that if the guy got any madder, his voice alone would bring down the entire building.

"I'm cancelling the investigation because it's going nowhere," Rockgut answered, trying his best to keep calm, "and because I'm sick of dealing with you. And since…"

"My ears are hearing things, but dey are not making any sense!" Julian denied childishly, shouting over the senior officer.

"Special Agent Rockgut…" Maurice started in a more balanced tone. This seemed like a good time to step in before things got too heated, and Maurice knew, as bad as things seemed, with Julian they could get a whole lot worse.

"The answer's no." The agent interrupted.

There was a knock on the door of the office, and Rockgut's secretary entered. Despite valiant efforts to hide her fear, her face was pale, and her hand, which held the cup of coffee Rockgut had asked for five minutes ago, shook like a leaf.

"I'm busy," he shouted, already annoyed, "if it's Elshaw asking for reinforcements, assign him whatever we've got, if we've got anything to assign him. Mackerel, I wish we still had Skipper and his team."

"Sir, there's someone here I think you should see." She continued, swallowing nervously.

"Is it the president?"

"No."

"Is it one of the higher ups who could get me fired?"

"No."

"Well tell him to come back in an hour."

"But sir…"

"Come back in an hour!"

"It's Agent 526, sir!" It took a few moments for Rockgut to digest this information, then he slowly nodded, giving no indication of shock or surprise, though equally none of calm or expectance.

"Mr King," He turned to his annoying partner in the recently cancelled investigation, "It would seem I owe you an apology. However, I would appreciate it if we could end our meeting now."

"Thank you for your time Mr Rockgut." Maurice guided Julian towards the exit.

"Nobody, even dis agent 526 guy, deserves an audience more than de king!" Julian protested.

"We will speak later." Maurice, after practically dragging his employer by his tie, managed to get the small party to vacate the room. After Julian had entered the elevator at the end of the hall and was at least two stories down, Rockgut's secretary opened a broom closet and the man Rockgut had never expected to see again stepped out. Yes, he'd had some warning, but it didn't make it any less sudden.

"Thanks, Janice," Skipper smiled somewhat flirtatiously at the secretary who blushed. Now that brought back memories. He promptly walked over to the door of the office and entered.

"I see you're enjoying retirement." Was the first comment the superior officer made. However, as soon as the door shut behind him, Skipper's mood immediately changed.

"Kitka says you're clean, but do anything that even remotely hints LEOPARDSEAL, and I will take you down with the rest of them." Skipper threatened.

"LEOPARDSEAL?" Rockgut questioned.

"Bertram Kowalski AKA George Kowalski. Agent Owen C. I. Rufus. Initials: O. C. I. R, backwards, that's Rico."

"Agent Rufus disappeared…"

"Five months before Rico turned up," Skipper finished, he had no time for pleasantries, he needed answers, "George Kowalski defected to LEOPARDSEAL after he fell in love and Maxwell Flynn-Godfrey was the youngest agent of LEOPARDSEAL ever reported. He'd be about 16 today, which would make him the same age as Private. Do you understand where I'm going or do I have to pull out the files on LEOPARDSEAL's supposedly abandoned Project: Familiar Face?"

"Project: Familiar Face…" the meaning of the words hit the more senior of the agents almost as hard as it had Skipper when he was first told, "I personally did full background checks on…"

"LEOPARDSEAL agents have gotten past our checks before. Now, I need to know the name of your superior. I have reason to suspect he's not who he says he is."

"I'm afraid that's classified information," Rockgut replied, "But I'll vouch for his honesty."

"I would have said the same about Kowalski. Now, I understand that you are unable to disclose the name of your boss, however I need you to tell me why you were in a bank in Zurich in 1972, and I need to know why you wiped all information concerning your removing the Red Squirrel's funds. I don't know why, but my gut tells me it has something to do with Project: Familiar Face, and I never question my gut."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"And I've got security footage. From 1972."

"Yes, I was in Zurich in 1972, but I wasn't in a bank. I couldn't have been in a bank."

"And just why is that?"

"Because only a few hours later they dragged me out half-conscious from under the rubble that used to be the Squirrel's hideout," Rockgut countered, glaring at Skipper, "Do your homework before you start pointing fingers, _cupcake_."

* * *

Kowalski's mission was clear, as well as completely off the books. He and Doris were going to see a movie; some film about friendship and romance. He was picking Doris up from her place, and well, what was the number one thing you could count on from Doris other than betrayal: that she would take longer to 'just fix her hair' than it took Leonardo da Vinci to paint the Mona Lisa. So, if Doris is in her bedroom instead of supervising him, and Blowhole is in the lab blowing stuff up, he'd have the perfect opportunity to raid the safe with the combination he'd memorised from his last visit. Kowalski was sure it was fool proof.

"What are you doing?" Blowhole asked.

"Um…" Kowalski glanced guiltily at the open safe behind him. Well, the plan was fool proof, but apparently not evil genius proof.

"Well?"


	11. The Language of Violence

**"Um…" Kowalski glanced guiltily at the open safe behind him. Well, the plan was fool proof, but apparently not evil genius proof.**

**"****Well?"**

Kowalski had been in a lot of uncomfortable situations, but this took the cake. He'd been caught searching files more times than he could count, and honestly didn't care about that, but the uncomfortable part was his girlfriend was in the next room and probably wouldn't take kindly to being used, even if only partially used, though she seemed to be okay about it when the person using her was her brother.

"Doris?" Blowhole shouted, never taking his eyes off Kowalski.

"Yes Little B?" was the woman's muffled reply.

"I'm afraid Kowalski won't be able to make the movie," Blowhole continued, "We will be going down to one of the storage locations. I recommend you call a friend if you do not wish to waste the second ticket."

"Alright," Doris answered after the short amount of time needed to digest the information, though she didn't seem to be too bothered by the statement, "I think Blue's free tonight."

* * *

Rico walked down to the garage and was about to enter the car when the headlights switched on. Rico should have been surprised, but then Kowalski 'modified' anything he could get his hands on, so it was probably just set to turn on when a motion sensor he probably passed on his way in was activated. Thus Rico continued towards the car, opened the door, and began to drive.

He'd only driven about fifteen minutes when the roof suddenly opened.

"'amn sci'ntist." Rico cursed. He was about to press the button to close the roof, when the car suddenly stopped. Rico looked down at the handbrake. He certainly hadn't moved it. Rico barely had time to begin puzzling it out, when he was thrown from the car by ejector seat. The parachute opened above him, and he was got a good view of the screaming civilians below. Well, it wasn't every day, at least for them, that someone was catapulted from their car in front of them. When he got closer to the ground he undid his seatbelt and jumped down to the street below, where the traffic had stopped, the drivers speechless. The seat landed with a soft thud behind him.

Well, that was a waste of a good seat Rico thought, slowly approaching the car. Suddenly, the headlights turned blood red, glowing eerily in the night-time cityscape, and Rico barely had time to dive out of the way before the car sped over the ground he had previously stood on. Rico picked himself up from the road, as the sound of the approaching automobile once again reached his ears. This wasn't good.

* * *

The room seemed quiet. Almost… too quiet. Well, that was what was going through the back of Skipper's mind as he sorted through, you guessed it, more papers. That was all he ever seemed to do these days. He remembered having to write mission reports, but he hadn't actually had to read through files since he was a junior agent, and that, to him, was a long time ago.

Suddenly Skipper was alert. His gut told him something was wrong. If his gut had only been more specific, then Skipper probably wouldn't have been surprised as he felt the cold and yet all too familiar prickle of the point of a knife against the back of his neck. Though the attacker had yet to disclose his identity, it was probably one of his many enemies, who'd somehow found out he was still alive. Then another thought crossed his mind: if one of the team realised he'd discovered what they were up to, it could be one of them. He was pretty sure they were all out, but one of them could have snuck back in to catch him by surprise.

"Why'd you do it, Skippah," Private barely choked back his anger, "She might not have been good to me, but she was my mother."

* * *

"Are you sure you don't want a turn, Geert?" a high-pitched, almost dolphin-like voice asked.

"No, I don't want to spoil my appetite before I get to Skipper." Geert replied.

"What about me, why can't I have him?" a Delaware accented voice protested.

"No." Blowhole answered, as if he'd already been asked this a thousand times. Kowalski knew he had, it was just hard to keep count as his body shook violently with every shock. There may have been more people in the room, but Blowhole hadn't removed the blindfold since he was driven away from the apartment.

"Now, shall we try this again," Blowhole continued after two pairs of footsteps receded into the distance, "How close is Skipper to discovering the location of the money?" Kowalski said nothing; "You can't possibly hold out forever," Kowalski continued to remain silent. He'd learned from both Skipper, and previous encounters with Blowhole, that his arrogance could easily be manipulated to force him to spill even the most sensitive secrets. On the topic of Skipper, Kowalski was surprise he and the team hadn't come after him yet, "I have been incredibly gentle, pen-gu-in, as I would prefer your mind clear so you can give me details. However…" suddenly Kowalski screamed as his body interrupted into more pain that he had ever experienced, it's source indiscernible, "now, if this were a scale of one to a hundred (it's actually a scale of minus three to one hundred and twelve point three to be exact) what you were previously experiencing would be one. You are now experiencing two. May I emphasize that you are only one fiftieth from the point at which I have to revert to plan B, and I have a contingency after that for every letter of the alphabet, all twenty six of them."

Kowalski knew better than to believe such threats. Blowhole was at the end of his rope, he just didn't want Kowalski to know it.

"Ah, you think I'm out of options and simply do not wish you to know it," Blowhole deduced with frightening accuracy, "Alright, we'll try number three." Kowalski had thought the first was bad. The second, unbearable. This was beyond his vocabulary. He could hear Blowhole's laughter, harsh on his ears, like icicles stabbing at his brain. He didn't know how long he could keep this up. He wasn't Skipper, he was a scientist. Well, he was just sorry he'd failed. He could try to wait till he blacked out, but Blowhole would just wait for him to wake up and start again. He'd just have to hope his body was as weakened by pain as his mind, and he would at least find an end to this in death.

Suddenly the laughter stopped. The pain stopped. His blindfold was removed and the metal restraints binding his wrists to the table snapped off. He found himself lifted by several pairs of hands and moved to a stretcher. Only an hour and a half later, his wounds patched, he was released on the very roof of the HQ, still blindfolded.

* * *

Skipper went to turn around but the cold blade was pressed harder against his neck, and a single drop of blood trickled down from the point where the tip of the blade touched his skin.

"Answer my question 'Skippah'." Private demanded.

"It was for the best." Was all skipper could say. He'd hoped Private would never find out. He'd wanted to believe a mistake he'd made in anger could be hidden away forever.

"She wasn't evil Skippah," Private continued his search for answers. He hated violence, but Barry convinced him there was probably no other way to get Skipper to admit it, never mind tell him why. Barry had even given him his knife to use, as Private couldn't bear to use the one Skipper had given him for his tenth birthday, "she just couldn't deal with what happened." Still, he didn't intend to kill or even hurt him, but Skipper obviously only understood the language of violence, so Private had no choice but to speak to him on that level.

"She nearly got you killed," skipper replied. He'd felt guilty the moment he'd calmed down, the blood on the blade he'd used to inflict the non-fatal wounds on Private's mother still warm, his gun in need of reloading. Nevertheless, he couldn't admit that. He was a leader, and a leader couldn't show remorse for his actions. It would destroy the chain of command, "That was reason enough for me."

"Then you have a _very _one dimensional view of the world."

"No, you just don't…" Why was he even arguing this? Private shouldn't be questioning his decision, even if he was wrong. He was the senior officer and Private was… the enemy? Immediately that train of thought quashed all the others going through his head.

No matter how good the files made Private AKA Agent Flynn-Godfrey seem, it was clear he wouldn't be able to take Skipper on and win. Not at the top of his game. So, obviously the plan was that the guilt he felt towards his mistake, which was probably planned as some kind of failsafe by LEOPARDSEAL, would throw him off long enough to get the job done. Well, they'd forgotten two things: one, that he was on to them and two, that remorse could turn to anger very fast. The room began to blur slightly. The cut on his finger throbbed. Of course, Flynn probably coated the papers in a tranquilizer which would be transferred into his blood stream via the paper cut, which when dealing with that many papers would inevitably happen, just in case. He had to work fast.

Skipper lifted his foot, which he'd managed to wedge under the coffee table in front of him, sending the object hurtling to the ground. For a split second Flynn's guard dropped, and a split second was all Skipper needed. He ducked down, anticipating a possible attack, twisting around to face the LEOPARDSEAL agent, and grabbed the knife and twisting it backwards. However, Flynn knew the move, ironically Skipper had probably taught it to him, and rolled under his knife arm, so his back was now to Skipper, and threw the already semi-off balance man over his shoulder. However, Skipper wasn't prepared to lose that fast and kept hold of Flynn's wrist, him over with him.

The two agents fought viciously over the weapon. Flynn would dodge Skipper's blunt attacks, and attempt to turn them back on him, but Skipper would quickly overpower him, despite the fact his eyes saw two attackers, as well as two of everything else in the room, and his brain seemed to be made of wool. Was he at his best, he would be anticipating his opponent's moves long before they happened, and the young assassin wouldn't have a chance.

"What are you doing Skippah?!" Flynn panicked. He was a good actor, he actually sounded confused and almost terrified.

"Do you really expect me to believe that one?" Skipper replied through clenched teeth as he fought to turn the blade away from him, "I know who you are." Suddenly the two agents froze, looking down at the knife, as blood started to pool on the floor.


	12. Loose Ends

**0700**

Rico arrived home exhausted and covered in dirt, bright red scrapes covering parts of his arms, his cloths in tatters. The crazy car had chased him half way across Manhattan, but just when he thought his time was up, it stopped, shut down, and went back to behaving like a normal car. However, when he entered the living room he noticed that a) Private was not seated in front of the Lunicorns as he usually was at 0700, in fact, the youngest member of the team was nowhere to be seen, and b) Kowalski seemed to be bent over a… bloodstain?

"… definitely a fight…" Kowalski thought aloud, acknowledging Rico's presence with no more than a quick pause in his continuous monologue, "blood type AB+… still waiting for the DNA test to come through… can't tell who won." Rico remained where he was, he knew better than to interrupt the scientist during an investigation, "they're both AB+… blood could belong to either of them… Can't tell where they went…"

"Fo'low 'ood trail?" Rico suggested, motioning to the consistent trail of red dots leading out of the living room and into the corridor.

"Rico, you're a genius!" Kowalski exclaimed looking up from the single larger bloodstain for the first time since he spotted it. The two teammates followed the trail until it stopped just outside one of the closets near the front door. Kowalski and Rico looked at each other, silently asking just who was going to open the door. Rico, as usual, seeing as nobody else was going to do it opened the door to reveal the obvious loser of the fight, bound hand and foot, blood staining his shirt and floor.

**_0415_**

_Private stared at the knife in total surprise. He was confused in the first place as to why they were fighting, but Skipper had actually stabbed him? He looked up at Skipper, expecting to see concern or shock, anything to suggest it was an accident, but found nothing but anger and cold resolve. Private winced as Skipper withdrew the knife. Skipper didn't seem to react to this, even twisting the weapon slightly._

_"LEOPARDSEAL's getting sloppy," the leader commented coldly. Skipper hadn't been making sense since the fight began. Private clenched a hand over the wound in his side, attempting to staunch the bleeding, which had increased with the removal of the knife._

_"S…Skippah?" Private asked shakily. He'd received worse physical wounds, but the emotional wounds were unlike those he'd faced in a long time._

_"Cut the fake accent, Flynn," Skipper grabbed Private roughly by his shirt raising the knife to his neck in such a position, as the only probable next move would be to cut the younger agent's throat._

_"Skippah… What are you…?" Private asked, shrinking away from the knife as best he could._

_"Don't try playing the sympathy card," Skipper stated for the second time that morning, attempting to sound indifferent, but his voice quavered._

_Just when it looked like Flynn was to meet Hans sooner than natural, Skipper stopped. He couldn't do it. Yes, every single moment of time they'd spent together, every memory, every joke they'd laughed at had all been part of some twisted scheme to get him to change sides, and though his training screamed otherwise, he couldn't do it. As aware as he was of Private's – Flynn's – true alliances, he still couldn't kill his own son. But then it would be strategically negative to leave him alive. If he killed the boy, then Flynn wouldn't be able to tell the team how much he knew, and after all, knowledge is power. _

_Skipper grabbed a length of cord from Rico's bunk, as well as several other weapons, and roughly forced the wounded agent's arms behind his back, ripping them away from the bleeding wound. He then proceeded to bind the cord around the younger agent's limbs, Flynn strangely putting up little resistance, making sure it was tight enough they cut into the skin; it would be harder for Flynn to untie the knots, there was a good chance the lack of resistance was him simply playing possum, if he was losing circulation in his fingers. His first task done, he lifted the boy, he was always surprised by just how light he was, and dragged him towards one of the closets._

_ Skipper knew Flynn would definitely bleed out before the team found him, the closet was just to make sure he didn't crawl into Kowalski's lab and cut the ropes using one of the many sharp objects and weapons, so it was really the same thing as killing him now. At least, Skipper tried to rationalize it this way, though he still half hoped the team would make it back in time to save the kid, who seemed to be reacting badly to a seemingly somewhat minor wound. Skipper then changed his shirt, which was stained with the boy's blood, wiped his prints from the knife, grabbed the flash drive containing all the data he'd managed to recover, and left._

**0730**

"… Well, I'm just glad I didn't accidentally hurt Skippah," Private concluded his story, much to Rico's confusion. The kid had nearly died, and he was worried about his attacker, "still, he's out there all alone and obviously not in his right mind…"

"It's worse than that," Kowalski interrupted gravely; "you said the knife grazed the back of his neck?"

"Yes," Private replied, not following the scientist's logic, "it was just a small scratch, though."

"And who gave you the knife?"

"Oh, Barry leant it to me. Why, what's wrong?"

"The knife was covered in a rare modified dart frog poison," Kowalski replied, handling the aforesaid knife with extra caution.

"But you synthesized an antidote from your collection of rare poisons?" Private asked still bewildered.

"You're fine, but Skipper, though he only received a small amount, shouldn't have more than a few hours to live unless we find him and give him the antidote," Kowalski explained, "Ironically, it's the only thing that gave you a chance in the fight against him. You see, the poison takes effect in three stages: he would have started out feeling the effects quite strongly, as he was when he was fighting you, and would remain that way for the first ten minutes. The dizziness should linger, but recede to an amount manageable with Skipper's level of will power. He will then remain like that for seven hours. Following that, he'll lose consciousness, and a few minutes after, he'll die."

"If I confronted Skippah at four am…"

"Then he has less than three hours left to live unless we find him, though any strenuous physical or mental activity could theoretically speed up the effects."

"Then he really has no hope," Private almost broke down into tears, "Nobody is ever able to find Skippah."

* * *

**0900**

"Phase two worked perfectly," Blowhole reported, "Doris did exactly as I told her arranging for the date to be last night, Kowalski memorised the combination and went after the safe exactly as anticipated, and was kept occupied for nine hours. Kuchikukan rigged the car, and I suspect, had a lot of fun chasing Rico across New York. Both team members were successfully distracted…"

"Before you give all the points to Mr. Fishy Mammal," Barry interrupted, much to Blowhole's annoyance, "I got Private to go after Skipper in the first place."

"But you deviated from the plan," The chairman of the group accused. He was about five nine, with black hair cut short and impeccably groomed to the point at which the villains wondered if he ironed his socks. His eyes however, glowed a slight red, and his movements were inhumanly precise.

"No I didn't!" Barry protested.

"You couldn't wait to kill… the original," the android continued, "So you coated the knife with one of you poisons."

"Okay, what if I did," Barry admitted, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." There was a murmur of agreement amongst the group.

"He does have a point…"

"Not as painful as I would have preferred, but revenge is revenge…"

Skipper's android double slammed his fist on the table, "In case you've forgotten, Kuchikukan, that hippie couch potato, rebuilt me from Frances Alberta's plans, with a processor powerful enough to defeat even Blue's intellect." The Blue Hen nodded grudgingly. She'd learned the hard way, this was true, "So I think you should keep to my plan."

Geert's brow furrowed, "But if Skipper's dead…"

"Dying, not dead," the android answered, "I'll just tell one of the less conspicuous operatives to give him the antidote," Skipper's optical sensors rested on Barry, who was trying to exit the room without being noticed, "Oh, one more thing, Barry's fair game." Immediately half the psychopaths at the table raced off after the fleeing ex-conspirator. Geert, however, stopped as he got to the door, looking back at Skipper.

"What about the other lose ends?" he asked, "Now that phase two is complete most of the operatives are no longer necessary, and Skipper's catching up pretty fast."

"I've already seen to it that all the loose ends, including my creator, never say anything to the original."

* * *

**1043**

Skipper knocked on the door of the dingy apartment, but received no answer. He knocked again, but was equally ignored. So, he kicked the door down. He'd never been to the apartment before, though the sight that met his eyes was as he expected it to be.

"Hippie couch potato," he muttered, eyeing the single room in which he found himself. Wires snaked across the floor and various electronic devices hummed and blinked as they performed various tasks Skipper couldn't begin to fathom, "Alright Agent Troy Kuchikukan, I want intel!"

"So the mighty Skipper decides to pay me a visit," a voice hidden behind a pile of out of date electronics countered sarcastically, "Not all of us get out of Penguin like you and Kitka."

"You were the last person the Squirrel was known to have contacted," skipper stated, "what's your connection to him."

"Yes well, if by contacting me, you mean gloating, you've got that right," Skipper walked around the pile of electronics to the desk at which the speaker sat, "What was it they all called me? The destroyer of worlds? My weapons could destroy worlds, until the accident." Kuchikukan was slightly pudgy from all his years out of action, though he still wore his old lab coat with a name tag saying: Agent Troy Kuchikukan. His tangled black hair grew down beyond his collar and covered his eyes in long greasy locks, and his face wore a perpetual scowl.

"You were critically injured on a mission…"

"Which you were commanding."

"… and in order to save your life Private," Skipper saw no reason to broadcast his knowledge of the team's true identities, "used your brain switching device to move your consciousness to a cheese loaf."

"Which drove me insane, apparently," Kuchikukan finished, "and so, at the top of my career, they discharge me for 'medical reasons' and leave me trapped in this apartment, 'house arrest', which is just about as spacious as living in a ceramic pot."

"There's no guards," Skipper commented. He'd walked in without any opposition.

"Well watch this then, brainiac," Kuchikukan walked over to the door, and attempted to walk through. A bright green light flashed and he was thrown backwards as if he'd hit some kind of force field, "and so I am trapped here forever. You know, I rebuilt the android, your android to be specific, a genius, hoping he would go out into the outside world and destroy the energy field. Well, he went into the outside world alright, he just didn't come back." Kuchikukan's red eyes flashed venomously.

"You rebuilt one of Frances Alberta's androids?!" Skipper exclaimed, "That psycho nearly replaced all the agents working undercover at Hoboken with androids!"

"I reprogrammed Skipper II; you have no fears on that front."

"Where is it?" Skipper demanded.

"I don't know, at least, not right now," Kuchikukan smiled like one who is exacting revenge. Skipper could tell, he'd seen that look so many times, "But he came back, you know. He wanted me to fix your car to attack Rico. After promising to get me out, he betrayed me again, but I found out one thing he doesn't know I know: despite the show he puts on, he's just, quite literally…"

Kuchikukan jerked backwards in his battered office chair as the bullet sailed through the window and would have pierced his heart had Skipper not shoved him out of the way at the last minute. Instead the projectile embedded itself in his right lung. Skipper had seen the sniper, the flash of light coming from the sun reflecting off the sight, but his sluggish body, he still struggled to just keep the effects of the tranquilizer at bay, had reacted only fast enough to lessen the damage slightly. Immediately Skipper pulled the limp man from the chair, ducking below window level himself as well to avoid being shot at further, and searched the apartment for anything to save the valuable information source.

Skipper spotted the brain switching device Flynn had used to save Kuchikukan's life. It occupied the place of honor atop the sea of silicon that covered the desk. He crawled along the floor, though the room seemed to rock, his balance slightly off kilter. But Skipper forced himself to keep going. No tranquilizer was going to take him down. He grabbed the machine, as well as the closest thing to him, a lunacorn, before switching on the device. It would take several minutes for the transfer to complete, during which time there was nothing he could do for him. Skipper carefully poked his head above the window. The sniper was still there. He might not need Kuchikukan to talk after all.

**1051**

Skipper climbed the fire escape, reaching the roof just in time to be spotted. The two twins, the Vesuvius twins to be exact, playboys who took on 'interesting' contracts for the thrill, made a dash for the next rooftop, one of them kicking the rifle over the edge of the building to prevent Skipper from using it against them. Skipper immediately began chase, though miscalculated the distance of the jump, barely grabbing the edge of the next roof with one hand. He tried to pull himself up, but the world began to spin, his grip weakening.

"Not… letting… those two delinquents," Skipper gripped the edge for all he was worth, slowly pulling himself up, "get the better… of me." Skipper tried to stand but nearly fell back over the edge.

"Oh look, I think he's actually trying to follow us," one of the twins commented. Skipper growled, crawling forward. He didn't care how he got them, but he was going to. Slowly, as his head began to clear, he grabbed the side of a water tower, pulling himself up.

Without warning, a powerful kick slammed into his knee cap. His knee buckled, and the other one struggled to support the sudden weight. Skipper now realized the affects he was feeling were now ordinary tranquilizer. He felt almost as if his strength was being drained from him. It was a chilly afternoon, yet he was sweating like crazy. Skipper slowly began to give in to the drowsiness, sinking towards the ground.

"I barely touched him."

The obnoxious voice cut through the cacophony of noises Skipper detected, reminding him of where he was. Oh well, the team would come and… Wait, he was on his own now. The team wasn't coming. Skipper struggled to his feet. If he gave up now, he was dead, which meant countless other agents just like him would be left at the mercy of LEOPARDSEAL.

"You know, I wouldn't be surprised if he finished himself off."

Yeah right. Skipper walked towards the sound of the voices. He knew he was precariously close to the roof; he hadn't walked that far from it. Black spots began to dance before his eyes, then, as if someone had switched off the light in a room, Skipper lost consciousness.

"You were right," one of the sadistic twin's voices continued the commentary, "he's knocked himself off the roof."


	13. Shattered Dreams

Ex-Agent Nigel walked home from the grocery store, the effort it took to carry the bags reminding him all too well of his age. He could remember the days when he was in his prime, he and Rockgut fighting Professor Leopardseal. Back then, his world was exotic locations, dangerous missions, expensive martinis, and fast cars. Oh how he longed, even if for one day, to live that life again. Maybe that was why he found it so hard to understand Skipper's decision. It was during this train of thought that his eyes, which were just as keen as they'd always been, spotted the very person he had been thinking of being dragged from an ally by none other than the Vesuvius twins.

"I wish the fall had killed him," one of the twins commented glumly.

"Don't be stupid," the other objected, "Then we wouldn't get paid."

"Who cares about money?"

"We'd be breaking our contract."

"So what?"

"Too late now," the second one pointed to a black non-descript car that had just turned the corner onto the street, and was diving towards them. It stopped directly in front of the twins, and the door opened. Skipper was then pulled into the vehicle by someone inside, and it drove off. However, as it travelled past him, Nigel caught sight of the passenger, and knew skipper was in somewhat safe hands. Still, it warranted following up.

* * *

"So, we go in tonight or keep watching?" Kitka asked, casing the building across the street through a pair of binoculars.

"You do know we could just ask Rockgut." Skipper commented, checking the firing mechanism of his weapon.

"And where would be the fun in that?" Kitka walked back from the balcony and into the sparsely furnished room they had been using to stake out the building opposite.

"Hm." Skipper continued to check the weapon, but didn't object further. It had been far too long since he'd been on a real mission, and he'd yearned for one since the first day of his retirement, but he wasn't going to give Kitka the satisfaction of admitting she was right.

"See, I know exactly how you think," Kitka took the gun from his hand, which Skipper was obviously using to avoid conversation, "you know, you still haven't thanked me for saving your life. Again. Even you aren't immune to poison."

"If you know me so well, you'll know I'm never going to," Skipper replied dryly, "Anyway, this LEOPARDSEAL base should hold all the information we need on the other agents…"

"Always so serious." Kitka sighed melodramatically.

"I have to be." Skipper, who was now growing slightly uncomfortable with the limited distance between them and lack of distraction, turned his back to her, walking towards a chair on which much of their weaponry was laid out, desperate to find some excuse to end the less than professional conversation. Suddenly he felt the thin leather strap of Kitka's binoculars around his neck, and before he could do anything about it was pulled backwards until there was no longer any space between them. Familiar lips brushed against his ear.

"You don't have to, not anymore," Kitka's gloved hand forced his head to the side, and kissed him hard on the lips. At first Skipper fought back, but Kitka had an iron grip on his arm, "She never really loved you." Kitka did have a point. Skipper relaxed, no longer fighting, though Kitka's grip never weakened. After all, they did have a challenge to see who could successfully surprise attack the other first and if she let go, there were a hundred ways Skipper could take her down. Suddenly Kitka pulled away, and like a cat leapt to the edge of the balcony, zip-line in hand, "Mission first, Skippy."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Skipper stated allowing himself a hint of a smile, and followed Kitka towards the target.

* * *

The view from the top of the Consolidated Amalgamated building was spectacular, though he'd never noticed it before. Skipper liked to look down at the people below, who looked like ants in the world's most chaotic ant farm. It made him feel like a spectator, still able to observe from a safe distance, yet detached from its many problems, though he knew at some point he would have to go back down there and face them. Skipper just liked to pretend he didn't. He looked up from the streets below. The sun seemed to shine brighter in the early morning sky, and buildings below didn't seem such a dull shade of grey. It was a feeling Skipper hadn't experienced in such a long time that at first he didn't recognise it and wondered if it was merely a side effect of the poison: he was happy. Truly happy, not just faking it to further the mission. In fact, it was a lot like the old days with Manfridi and Johnson, the missions always on his terms, and without the stress of remaining suspicious of everyone around you, just in case the person you trusted most in the world was only waiting to stab you in the back. His heart still ached when he thought of the team, or Marlene, but over the last couple of weeks he'd been with Kitka, it hadn't hurt quite so bad. Maybe he could live with this.

"… I followed your instructions to the letter," skipper heard the tinny reproduction of Kitka's voice over the speaker of his mobile phone. He'd actually forgotten he'd bugged the rooms when he first got there, to the point at which he hadn't remembered to keep his phone on silent. He immediately plugged in a pair of earphones lying on the desk, and sat down on the bed, listening to the conversation. He didn't exactly have anything else to do; sure, it sounded slightly suspicious, but it was probably just circumstantial, " you need to keep your part of the bargain. You said, after you got control of Skipper, you'd let me keep him," Immediately the idyllic image of life Skipper had lived only a few moments ago shattered, returning him to the cruel reality. Friends, and even lovers, were just enemies who had yet to reveal their hand, "I won't let you just turn around and say someone else bid higher…"

That was all Skipper could bear to hear. He grabbed his bag, which he'd left packed with everything he'd need, back when he first arrived; when he wasn't too molly coddled to plan for the contingency in which Kitka was also working for LEOPARDSEAL. He then checked that the hallway was clear, before slipping silently out the door and edging his way towards the exit. At that moment, running down the stairs three at a time, looping the security camera's footage as he passed, he felt as if whatever was left of his battered heart had been ripped from his chest. But he didn't have time for that now. There were only two other people he could go to now, and as much as he'd been putting off the visit, he could definitely trust them: Manfridi and Johnson.

* * *

"Ironic, isn't it," The first of the Vesuvius twins commented, waiting for their target to step in front of the window. Kitka was the last name on their list, "the robot pays us, to be paid by Kitka to go find her boyfriend, and now we kill her. I wonder if we'll get to kill him too?"

"That's not irony, stupid," the other contested, "anyway, he's a robot, we can't kill him."

"Well, maybe we can…"

"Target in range." The second twin reminded, pointing to Kitka, who was stood directly in the centre of the floor to ceiling window.

Kitka stumbled backwards in surprise as the glass in front of her shattered. The projectile hit the wall behind her, the rope trailing after it sailing only a few feet above her head. Immediately she dived out of the way, as two bodies slid down the line, smashing down the rest of the glass and slamming into the wall. This was followed by a third, who disconnected himself from the line before he hit the wall, landing directly in front of her.

"Ex-Agent Nigel at your service ma'am," he introduced with a courtly nod, before motioning to the Vesuvius twins, still suspended from the line by their manacled wrists, "These young miscreants just attempted to kill you."

"You'll never get away with this!" one of the Vesuvius twins shouted.

"We've got lawyers!" the other concurred, "We'll be out before you can verify our identities."

"Alright, let's get them down to HQ," Kitka took control, as she always did in stressful situations as a bizarre way of coping..

"Not quite yet," Nigel objected, "we're going to play a little game of I ask questions, and you answer them on pain of arrest, to see just what kind of dastardly plot you've been allying yourself with, before I take _you _down to HQ."

* * *

"Believe us now, Skipps?" Manfridi asked. The three teammates were once again gathered at the ancient safe house.

"Yes." There was no need to ask skipper how he'd come to his conclusion. His face was pale, his shoulders sagged as if they bore the weight of the world, and his almost deathly stare was a good indication of how little the world meant to him.

"We can't tell him the rest now," Johnson hissed. The younger 'brother' seemed unable to grasp the concept that Skipper could hear him.

"I can take it," Skipper stated, "We need to stop LEOPARDSEAL."

"Are you sure?" Manfridi asked warily.

"Does it look like I can afford to keep putting it off?"

"Alright," Johnson took a deep breath before continuing, "Skipper, meet the third member of the team." the lights in the base switched on, revealing a man leaning against one of the concrete pillars that had previously been concealed in shadow.

"Hello, Skippar," the Dane greeted, approaching skipper, a cordial smile on his face, "long time no see."


	14. Trust

Blowhole stared at the screen, his head in his hands.

"What happened?" The android shoved the lobster that went to open the door for him aside, marching hurriedly towards the scientist.

"I don't know…" Blowhole looked up, wondering how much this getting out would hurt his reputation, "It all just went wrong."

"He broke control?!" Skipper exclaimed, his eyes growing a more intense shade of red than usual.

"No, more like morphed it," Blowhole pointed to the readings on the screen. Skipper scanned the list of figures.

"How did it happen?"

"Technically, it's impossible, but then those Penguins seem to eat impossible for breakfast," Blowhole didn't even notice the complement he'd paid his archenemies, so great was his anxiety. It was one thing for your own scheme to fail, but he'd seen what had happened to Barry. If the android was supposed to have less of a conscience than Skipper, he didn't like his chances, "The only thing I can think of, was that his mind was just too strong."

"Can you regain control?"

"I can try," Blowhole paused, considering his wording, "But the chances aren't good. You're better off…"

"We go ahead with the plan."

"It will only waste time and energy. It's a 98.9997% chance, if I keep trying, that he'll break free completely," Well, if he pulled out now, which he probably could using this as an excuse, he could wait for the plan to fail and say I told you so, "The mind control technology you gave me is ancient, it's barely keeping together. We could simply cut our losses, and…"

"I suggest you take a look at security camera 2234, the tunnels under Hoboken."

Immediately Blowhole's expression changed. He'd suspected something was wrong when Doris hadn't answered her phone, and security systems confirmed she'd left the apartment at two in the morning and hadn't returned since. He'd put his mind at rest assuming she'd gone through with her crazy dream of eloping with Kowalski, which was, if disappointing, somewhat inevitable.

"I anticipated your change of mind, and prepared for it." The machine explained coldly, though the image on the screen illustrated his point better.

"You didn't…" He barely whispered, though quickly put on an act of indifference, "Go ahead. Kill her."

"Miss Blue says otherwise. Get him under control. If you hit the kill switch," Skipper threatened indifferently, as he opened the door to leave, "it's hooked up to both of them. You kill him, you kill her."

* * *

"Hans!?" Skipper exclaimed, less than trusting thoughts filling his head. However, he wasn't as shocked as he expected to be. Well, at least in some part of his mind, he remembered all this.

"I told you he couldn't handle it." Johnson hissed.

"Skipper, Hans has been our leader while we were trying to find you." Manfridi explained.

"But I…"

"…Like cookies, yes we all do." Johnson interrupted nervously, giving Skipper a warning look, "that's right!"

Skipper, however, did not take the hint and continued: "I killed you." Hans' expression darkened.

"Poor Geert, always so eager to please," Hans recounted, "he only wanted to prove he was good enough to work with the team, by proving he was better than me."

"The fish fighting…" the memory seemed to pop into his head as if some invisible person had whispered it to him.

"I was the only one who could best you in our little matches," Hans sighed, "Geert kept causing trouble, playing the villain so he could keep confronting you, but he just kept losing. I never realised what he was doing until it was too late."

"I…" He tried to recall exactly what had happened that night. All he could remember was the salmon on the tray. The rest seemed blurred and muddled, until the team arrived.

The bitterness in the Dane's eyes dimmed slightly, "It's just hard to forget. Well, we don't have time for sentimentality, do we Skippar." Hans smiled slightly, as if it was some joke they'd once shared.

"Wait so…"

"Hans was in charge of the other team we were working with on OPENSANDWICH."

"OPeration ENter Secure AND Watch (this Includes agent CHase)," Skipper recited, though he had no idea how he remembered this.

"Yeah, that was our name for it," Johnson chuckled slightly, "the real one was a whole lot duller."

"Ironically, Chase was the one who got us caught," Manfridi added, "The kid didn't understand the 'this includes Agent Chase' part," Manfridi turned to Hans, "And if I remember, Hans, he was on your team."

"He was a new recruit who was a little too eager for battle," Hans defended, "Anyway, you and Johnson…"

The conversation was interrupted by skipper's phone. He was about to switch the device on silent, however, the name of the caller caused him to change his mind.

"Special Agent Rockgut, sir." Skipper answered, mildly surprised he had signal.

"_The whole HQ's been compromised,_" Rockgut shouted so loud the rest of the room could hear, "_I need backup._"

"What's the situation?"

"_Mind control. Don't know which of the Skipper-haters club is behind this, but it's probably Blowhole. You're the only one I know hasn't been compromised_."

"I can bring more…"

"What type of control is it?" Manfridi asked, having heard a majority of the conversation.

"Ma… Kitka asks what type of control it is." Skipper relayed.

"_Don't bring her_," Rockgut ordered, "_If they turn us, there'll be no one able to take us down. Don't bring the twins and Svenson either_."

"Yes, sir." Skipper asked, too concerned to wonder how Rockgut knew who he was with. He lowered the phone, and addressed his friends, "Exception to the never swim alone, boys." It was obvious how much the recently reunited team wanted to disobey orders, but they understood, that by accompanying Skipper, they would be not only be risking themselves, but, worst case scenario, almost every Penguin agent or civilian the unknown enemy disliked. Skipper could see their reasoning spelled out on their faces. They didn't have the right to take that risk. Over the last few years, they'd seen how much damage he could do on the other side.

"Yes sir." They answered. The hint of a proud smile ghosted across Skipper's face. It felt good to be back.

* * *

"So are we talking psychological attacks and appeals to our morality," Skipper asked, entering the security room through one of the hidden panels, "or the mindless zombie variety?"

"Type one," Rockgut answered sharply, "I'm locking down the building now you're in. I don't want them spreading."

"Good, then we aren't up against augmented strength."

"No, but they're better than most. Hard to keep from giving in at times. I've been holed up in here, waiting to..." the screen began to flash red, "Mackerel, they're after the tech in research and development."

* * *

_"Why are they attacking?!"_

Skipper struggled against the crowd of agents, most of which he knew. Every time he took down one, two more took their place. Rockgut was right, they were pretty convincing, and this only added to the problem.

"_They must have gone double!"_

"What are you doing?!" Skipper exclaimed, his surprise barely leaving him enough time to duck under an incoming punch. The officer had fired on an agent, fatally wounding him.

"Squirrel Drones, I recognise the symptoms," Rockgut shouted back, "they're minds are gone. Literally. There's nothing we'd be able to do to save them."

_"Someone call reinforcements! I don't know what's wrong with them!"_

_"What's he talking about?!"_

"Are you sure?" Skipper asked, his hand edging closer to the knife he'd kept sheaved; he would have a better chance at surviving this if lethal force. Skipper had read up on Squirrel Drones, and Rockgut was right, they were already dead.

"Completely." Skipper drew his knife. The drone's expressions looked shocked, terrified, but Skipper knew it was just an act. Still, that didn't make it feel much easier.

_"He's got a knife!"_

The agent in front of him made a dive for the knife, trying to knock it out of his hand. Skipper recognised him. More than that, they knew each other quite well. Skipper grimaced as he saw the opening created by the agent's attack. Still, he didn't hesitate as he grabbed the agent's gun from his holster, shooting him in the stomach.

"Sorry Andy." Skipper whispered, before turning towards the next agents. It was then a new thought occurred to him, "Blowhole and Blue are the only ones smart enough to do this." Skipper shouted to his commanding officer. He could morn later, "They'd be going after the classified documents, right?" Skipper could see Rockgut's eyes do a quick head count, "This is a distraction!"

"We have _that_ many agents?!" Skipper thought the number packed into the large open plan lab looked about the amount of agents who worked at the HQ.

"You'd be surprised how many people work on the classified levels," Rockgut then began to literally fight his way through the crowd, "Escape tunnel Delta Charlie Zulu, NOW."

"I'll try and seal them in, go ahead." Skipper replied.

"I need your help to break in, cupcake." It was then Skipper spotted a test tube containing a blue liquid on the table.

"Get into the tunnel, I'll catch up."

Rockgut dived under one of the tables, hitting a nearly invisible button on the underside. Immediately the table shot down, an identical one taking its place almost as quickly. He found himself in one of the familiar concrete tunnels that led to almost all the rooms in the base. Rockgut had barely gone a few feet when the tables once again switched places, and Skipper raced into the tunnel as the floor shook, the concrete even cracking slightly with the explosion in the room above. This was accompanied by muffled screams.

"How did…?"

"I spotted the two chemicals that Kowalski used pretty much all the time. No idea what they are, but they'd probably do some damage, if Kowalski used them a lot." Skipper replied, "It should have taken out a decent amount of the hostiles." The two ran at a steady pace, they didn't want to tire themselves out though they wanted to get to the vault as fast as possible, through the dimly lit tunnels. There was no need to speak. This was just like one of those test missions they gave you in which everything was doomed to go wrong. Luckily for Skipper, he'd even managed to beat the instructors. He just hoped his teachers hadn't grown smarter since.

Rockgut flipped a switch, the ceiling above them slid open, and the two Penguins climbed the metal ladder into the room above. It, unlike previous rooms, was completely unfurnished, showing only the most complex lock both agents had ever seen.

"Alright, cupcake, get to work. You've done it before." Rockgut encouraged, becoming slightly annoyed at Skipper's inaction.

"Before they upgraded it." Skipper replied. It was hard to put a positive spin on a situation like this, and his men weren't here. He didn't need to keep up the good morale with fake confidence.

"Well that's just beautiful," Rockgut muttered.

"No, the design seems familiar," Skipper looked over the vault as Rockgut glanced nervously at the door wondering when it was going to come crashing down, "Of course, Kowalski was working on this!"

"How much time do you spend watching the guy?"

"Believe me, if I didn't you'd be having to explain more mysteriously destroyed buildings than you already do," Skipper then spotted the key pad in the corner, "Why don't you have the code?"

"Even I don't have clearance for this kind of stuff."

Skipper set to work, using his knife to leaver the key pad off the wall. Kowalski had often complained that he couldn't get the anti-tamper guards to work on the top left corner.

"Any time, cupcake," Rockgut warned after a few minutes had passed, "We've gotta get those files out of the building before the enemy gets to them."

"I hate electronics," Skipper growled, as he continued to scrutinize the circuit boards and wires beneath the panel, not even sure where to start, "Oh, what the hell?!" he grabbed a handful of the wires, hoping they weren't too high voltage, and yanked them out.

"Defences, disabled." The annoyingly calm automated voice they used for all the systems at Penguin announced.

"Brute force beats science any day," Skipper smirked, "alright, Rockgut, vault's open…" Skipper never got the opportunity to finish his sentence as the butt of the senior agent's gun knocked Skipper over the head. The other agent taken care of, Rockgut entered the vault, and set to work removing the files.

**Sorry for the late update. Hopefully, in the next couple of chapters, there should be more of the rest of the team, but for reasons of leaving clues, I had to focus on Skipper. I'd love to hear what you think so far, ideas, suggestions etc.**


	15. Two Weeks

March 10th

Skipper awoke in a non-descript medical bay, the walls and surfaces painted a plain and sickeningly sterile white. He was getting really sick of waking up in strange places. At least this time his head was clear. He could hear a low murmur of a single voice, probably talking on the phone, in the other room. He climbed out of the cot, noting that the bloodstains on his cloths had dried, and walked cautiously to towards the door. When he was within a few feet of the door, the conversation stopped. Skipper's hand closed on the door handle, paused, and then he suddenly threw it open, revealing the room beyond.

The door hit the wall on the other side with a bang. The room beyond the door was as almost as plain as the room from which he'd come. There was a long table, at the end of which was whiteboard, like a classroom. Near the door on the other side of the room was a board on which several notices reminding things like 'always check your bag for enemy listening devices' and 'hand to hand combat advanced class has been moved from 1330 to 1020'. At the head of the table was a single man, with greying red hair and slight stubble, a black eye patch covering his left eye. He looked up, smiling warmly at Skipper as if he knew him, though Skipper had never seen the man in his life:

"Welcome home Skipper."

March 24th

"Kowalski, he's been gone two weeks," Marlene fretted, "there has to be something we can do?"

"Like what?" Kowalski snapped. If anyone wanted Skipper back, it was him. Without Skipper, there was nothing to prevent Rico from consistently raiding his lab for explosives or deadly weapons. It was absolutely intolerable.

"I don't know. We could report him missing, or…" Marlene was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Oh principia mathamatica," Kowalski grumbled, marching off in the direction of the sound. Marlene sighed wearily, slumping further back into the chair, waiting for the inevitable string of science related insults that would greet whoever was unfortunate enough to be on the other side of the door. However, the shouts that came were not those he expected: "Skipper!"

Immediately, Marlene was on her feet and running towards the door. Lo and behold, Skipper stood in the doorway, a supressed half smile on his face. Now that was the skipper she remembered. Immediately she threw herself at him. Skipper froze for a split second, not quite sure how to respond, though quickly seemed to process the information and hugged her back.

"Promise me you will never do that again."

* * *

"…And Manfridi and Johnson?" Kowalski asked. Skipper looked down at the floor.

"Dead," He replied shortly after some thought, "Again."

"Slightly ironic that Manfridi and Johnson were taken by Hans on OPENSANDWICH and convinced that you had been," Kowalski commented.

"I guess so." Skipper replied dully.

"Still, the part I find so hard to believe is that Rockgut was behind it all. I mean, killing everyone in Penguin to make sure he wasn't found out is a little extreme, despite his somewhat Machiavellian mind-set."

"I don't really hold it against him," Skipper answered much to the amazement of the rest of the room, "They say the Squirrel did things to him. Horrible things. I wish just I'd been able to stop him, but I arrived too late. It was already done."

"He is – was –," Marlene corrected herself, after noting the expression on Skipper's face, a hint of disgust in her voice, "the greatest Penguin commando in history you didn't stand a chance. You had no choice but to open the vault."

"She does have a point, skipper," Private concurred, though there was a wariness to his gaze that had been there since the beginning. Something none of the team could understand. He appeared unable to make eye contact with his leader, and his expressions seemed to be forced. Well, he was probably just shocked by Skipper's sudden appearance, was what the subject of Private's anxiety concluded.

"I guess you're right," Skipper admitted, "Can someone get me a coffee?"

March 17th

The android had been standing outside the door for over ten minutes. It wasn't unusual to be kept waiting so long. He was a robot after all. His instructions were to report to the Red Squirrel at 0900, and he'd had to make a lot of excuses to get out of meetings and inspections for it. Skipper's fist clenched and his face contorted into a scowl. Nobody would be late for a meeting with Skipper. The real Skipper.

A muffled scream from down the hall reached his auditory sensors. The Squirrel was obviously still interrogating the original and wouldn't arrive for some time. He'd never been inside the Squirrel's private office… The android's hand edged towards the door handle, but quickly returned to his side as he mentally slapped himself, even considering entering had been taking a liberty in itself. Still, he shouldn't just be ordered around… What would skipper do at this point? The android made his decision: Based on memories and common patterns, skipper would go inside. He opened the door.

The room was nothing spectacular. Filing cabinets and tables covered with outdated maps and charts made up most of the room, as well as a computer with a gigantic monitor. That was rather expected, as nine out of ten threat level seven Penguin enemies were known to use oversized monitors. However, one wall was covered with photographs, scribbled notes, and official looking documents, as well as objects in sealed plastic bags, pieces of string linking them in a seemingly chronological order. Skipper decided to start at what were obviously the oldest photos.

_1965_

_The young agent burst into the room. He might only have been eighteen, but his father had started, and still controlled Penguin Division, so he'd been running around the single floor that was the New York headquarters since he was ten. His commanding attitude, despite the fact he never used his father's position for power as he thought it cowardly, caused even some of the most jaded agents sit up strait when he entered the room. There was something about the lad, his mere presence that screamed leader._

_"__Which one of you was the idiot in charge of the mercenary!?" Rockgut demanded. The room fell silent, all eyes on the newest entrant, "Well? Have I gotta slap the truth outa ya?"_

_"__Miles, I think." One of the men who'd previously been examining a map answered. Rockgut's eyes quickly searched the room, confirming that Miles was not present._

_"__Lucky him," Rockgut muttered, then continued addressing the room, "Tell him he's fired."_

_"__What?!" the other man gasped, "Miles…"_

_"__Shut your mouth Rawson, you look like a fish," Rockgut snapped._

_"__But… Why?"_

_"__Because he let our 'contractor' get away with $40,000. Just ask accounting. They picked it up on the last audit," Rockgut's attention returned to the rest of the room, "The Squirrel's had a good fifteen minute head start. Allen, Rigg, Jordon, I want you to take the bus stops and taxi stands, see if you can find out where he went. Fletcher, Gleeson…"_


	16. Fossa

"He's waking up." The boy, who was no older than nine heard an unfamiliar voice hiss.

"Wha… Where…?" the boy groaned as he opened his eyes. That was when the laugh started. That hyena-like, crazed laugh that would haunt the next few years of his childhood. His voice dropped to little more than a whisper, "Classified…?!"

_"__What's your name, kid?" the man asked as he crouched behind the crate, gun in hand._

_"__B… Barry, sir," The child replied nervously. He honestly had no idea how the agent would know if one of the strange people chasing them were directly in front of his face, so impenetrable was the darkness "What's yours?"_

_"__That's classified."_

_"__Oh. That's a strange name." Barry commented. 'Classified' was about to correct this when Barry continued: "where's my mommy…?"_

_"__Keep focused." Classified interrupted. He wasn't going to answer that question, at least, not if he could help it._

_"__But…"_

_"__Shut up or they'll hear you."_

_"__Who are they?"_

_"__You really don't want to know."_

_"__But…"_

_"__Shut up already." Classified hissed. He'd spotted something in the shadows of the surprisingly large basement. Classified removed his radio from his pocket, "I've spotted a Fossa in the basement, cupcake. Anything on your end?" The only reply he received was static, "Rookies. Always gotta be the hero," he muttered, then instructed his charge: "Don't go anywhere, tree frog." And with that, the man vanished into the darkness. Barry sat there for a few minutes, trembling with fear, waiting for Classified to return._

_"__Fossa hungry…"_

Barry almost at once saw the man who looked down on him was not Classified, though the light coming in from the large windows was blinding to the child who'd spent so long in darkness, turning the man who stood directly in front of him and the stone pillar he was shackled to into blurred smears of colour. As his eyes began to adjust, he saw there were others in the room: figures wearing gold cloaks embroidered with strange designs in brown thread. However, the man in front of him remained blurred and unrecognisable as if a memory he couldn't quite recall.

"Fossa like?" a figures spoke in unison.

"Hm… You ninnycompoopees may have lost the target, but this child is a decent consolation prize. I want him trained. I think he may be useful if my profiles of the target are correct."

Then world seemed to blur, morphing into another room, this time more detailed. He could now see the rest of the room, though this time he was alone. It was the gigantic, vaulted training room he remembered so well: the grey stone floor, designed so bits of rock jutted out randomly, surrounding a circle of black marble. The room was illuminated by torches, which flickered against the walls and ceilings, also of grey stone. However, he wasn't alone for long.

The sound of the huge wooden doors opening had the young boy on his knees in seconds, just as he was taught. He could hear the swish of the cloaks moving across the floor, followed by an unfamiliar sound: screaming. Still, he daren't look up until he was told.

"Please, please, I beg you…!" an unfamiliar voice screamed.

"Fossa hungry…"

"Rise _dirt_." Barry was ordered. Immediately the boy shot to his feet, his eyes falling on the source of the unfamiliar voice. It was a tall, skinny man, with fluffy white blond hair, and big green eyes, "This is the moment you prove yourself," the cloaked man announced, "this is the moment you display the skills we have taught you, that years of training have not been for naught."

"Fossa yes." Barry replied obediently.

"Good," his trainer grabbed the unfamiliar shackled man, by his hair, holding him in front of Barry. At the same time another one of the many faceless, nameless Fossa cultists extended a wooden box, a poison dart frog carved on the top, "Kill him."

"Please no!" the man begged in his strange accent. The cloaked fossa member placed the box at Barry's feet, opening it to reveal twenty small glass vials containing various coloured liquids.

"_Kill him!_" his trainer hissed. For several seconds the words didn't register in Barry's mind. He was so mesmerized by the man in front of him, the first person he'd seen in a long time, apart from his trainer, who didn't add 'Fossa' before 90% of sentences. Barry looked down at the man who seemed so helpless, "Kill the Lemur!"

"Fossa hungry." Murmured some of the cloaked figures in the rows behind. Barry reached into the box removing one of the vials, the one that would bring the quickest death to the unfortunate man. Suddenly Barry's back exploded into pain, his hand dropping the vial which smashed onto the ground.

"Wrong answer," His trainer, holding the cat-o-nine-tails, shouted. Barry hissed, and struggled to remain standing, fighting back tears, knowing from experience that displaying it would only bring more, "No mercy. No kindness."

"Fossa sorry." Barry choked. His master reached into the box, removing a dark green vial, and placed it in Barry's hand. Barry made a quick examination.

"State the name and effects, dirt." His trainer demanded.

"Fossa yes. Rare dart frog venom, attacks nervous system and liver. It would take the victim n… nine hours to die."

"Good. You know how to administer it. Show me."

Barry looked down at the vial in his hand. He shut his eyes, trying to block out the image of the man before him.

"I… I…"

"Do it."

"I… Can't…" the cat-o-nine-tails lashed his already pained back, breaking the skin. Barry screamed and dropped to his knees. The whip hit his back again. And again. And again.

"Kill him, or I will flay the skin from your back, dirt!"

* * *

Private dragged the bleeding and semi-conscious, semi-delirious form from the car.

"… No Fossa… Can't…" Barry muttered, his eyelids fluttering slightly. Private had found his friend running half dead in front of the car, which skipper had permitted him to take, though on auto pilot so he wasn't really driving, to pick up some much needed fish for tomorrow's coffee. Barry had collapsed before he could tell private whom he was running from, and Private had immediately returned them to the HQ.

"It's okay, Barry. K'walski will fix you up in no time." Private comforted. Suddenly Barry's head jerked to the side.

"… Not the penguins!" Barry almost shouted, thrashing feebly in his sleep, "… Hoboken… No more doors… Skipper… lock me up again…" and with this Barry's mutters returned to incoherent sounds.

"Um… Right," Private stuttered, somewhat surprised by the outburst, "I guess that's a no to K'walski."

"Private?" Skipper shouted from upstairs, "Are you alright?"

"Yes Skippah!" Private returned nervously, "Everything's fine."

"You're back early?"

"Yes, well, they were out of fish."

"It takes a minimum of three minutes and 15.354 seconds to drive to the supermarket and back, Private." Skipper shouted back.

"I checked online, they were out." There was a pause for a few seconds, and then Skipper continued:

"They don't have a website."

"Alright, I've been watching the lunicorns," Private shouted looking desperately around the room for a place to put Barry, lest his acting was as bad as Skipper often stated it was. Then he spotted his winky stash room. Kowalski had built it for him and not told skipper as a birthday present, though Private had doubts about whether it stayed a secret after he'd accidentally set one of the scientist's inventions on fire during a lesson. Still, it was the best he had, so he quickly opened the fish trophy, and stuffed Barry into the small, winkie filled room behind, "I'll go right now."


	17. The Protege

**"****Welcome home Skipper."**

March 10th

Skipper looked from the red haired man before him, to the rest of the room.

"What?" Skipper asked. It was obvious from the other man's expression that this was not the answer he was expecting.

"Don't you remember?" The room's other occupant asked, noting Skipper's bewildered expression, which had suddenly changed to that of scepticism.

"Do you work for Blowhole?"

"Skipper, this is Penguin HQ," Skipper made another quick scan of the room, "I'm Special Agent Marlow."

"Marlow…" the name seemed vaguely familiar.

"Yes. Your commanding officer before we lost you." Skipper still wasn't sold. Then suddenly he demanded:

"Operation Fish and Chips. What method of retreat did I use after I'd acquired the target?"

"You never disclosed that information."

"If you were really my commanding officer, you'd know what I'd choose," Special Agent Marlow paused, as if taken aback by the question.

"I'd assume the retreat tactic you used…"

"Wrong answer," Skipper interrupted, "I'm not that naive. I don't believe just any old trumped up story…"

"You didn't retreat. You were captured and then rescued."

"Sir?"

"Back then you were too young and reckless to retreat. The plan was fool proof; there was no way you could have been caught unless you missed. And you said you had temporary amnesia since you couldn't bear to admit you missed an easy shot."

"I…" Skipper's hand clenched uncomfortably. Marlow smiled understandingly.

"I also know you well enough not to put you through the agony of apologising," The man pressed a button on the table. The door opened and a rather overweight woman in an unflattering brown turtleneck and insanely tight jeans entered, "Rhonda. Take Skipper to his old room and make sure he keeps out of the mess hall."

"Don't worry, sir, he's not going anywhere near there till we set up the lasers around the winkie cupboard," The woman replied, setting off down the hallway, "We kept your quarters just as you left them. We always knew you'd come back."

"Yeah. I always make it back one way or another."

March 25th

Blowhole had planned everything down to the smallest detail. He couldn't afford to make a single mistake. It had taken him time to bypass the complicated security protocols the android, who had since fallen from power, had put in place, slowly implant post hypnotic suggestions in all the guards minds to firstly, remain convinced he was there, to the point of holding a conversation with him, and at the correct signal, begin chase after him in the opposite direction in which he had gone, long after he had left, to serve as a wild goose chase. These were things that, despite his desperation to hear his sister yell at him to get out of the lab once again, had to be done slowly, and with extreme caution.

With the push of a button he looped the footage and microphone feed from his cell and the corridors he'd pass through during his escape. Part one subsection one complete. Now on to subsection two.

"Red one?" Blowhole asked the turncoat guard. The android had offered them more, and instead of his own personal guards, all but a small group, had become his jailers.

"Yes Dr?" the armoured assistant poked his head into the room.

"Flippy." This was the trigger word. This done, Blowhole left the lab, the lobster had left the door unlocked, and started down the hallway. In the room from which he had just left, he could hear the guard asking him what type of logic gate he needed.

The base was a rabbit warren. Endless concrete tunnels with slightly rusted iron doors that looked familiarly Hoboken-ish. It was a good thing he'd taken a complete map when he'd hacked the security systems. If he hadn't left his clipboard behind (he was by no means copying Kowalski), he would have added it to the list of reasons why being a genius was good enough that it made up for the social isolation in high school. Thus, he congratulated himself as he ran down the empty passageway.

By now, he calculated was on the other side of the base. He looked at his watch. 3, 2, 1… immediately alarms began to blare and lights flashed.

"Warning! Warning! Escape Detected!" A comically calm pre-recorded voice announced in more languages than he could count. Blowhole could hear scores of feet in hallways parallel to his rushing towards the scene where the guard who had previously been watching a person who was, in fact, not there, would inform them that he'd run in the opposite direction. He could see the obscure service entrance, most importantly not hooked up to the security system, only 10.772 meters away. At this, he couldn't help but smile. If he pulled this off, it would be the first mission he ever successfully completed, though his failures were due _entirely_ to the invention of Skipper.

"Stop right there!" he heard a very surprised lobster holding a steaming mug of coffee shouted. He had no choice but to stop. The lobster was armed and he was not, "hands above your head, no sudden movements." Well, so much for that successful mission.

"We got 'im, boss." The two lobsters announced as they frogmarched their former employer into the room.

"Did you really think you could escape?" Blue asked, her back to the recaptured scientist, though this was entirely for dramatic effect, "I can predict your every move," Blowhole opened his mouth to speak, but was quickly interrupted, "you were about to say 'actually, this is all part of my plan'. That's what you always say when you forget to carry the two."

"Actually, it was a three." Blowhole corrected.

"I knew that!" Blue whirled around, in such a way that made it obvious she didn't.

"Sure you did," Blowhole smirked, glad he'd gotten her full attention. He deserved nothing less. However, all this accomplished him otherwise was to be pushed roughly to the floor by his captors which didn't exactly help his headache, "you do know, that I know, that you only captured me because one of the turncoats took an unauthorised coffee break?"

"That's not true!" the guard who'd found him automatically denied, though it was obvious how guilty he looked. He could already see Blue's face contorting into pure anger.

"Laziness is not tolerated!" Blue snapped with dangerous calm. She grabbed a glass of water left on the table, smashed the rim on said furniture, and used the jagged edge to slice the offending lobster's throat. Immediately he was dragged back, and another guard took his place behind the prisoner. No one so much as flinched. It was a fairly common occurrence.

"That's one revenge taken care of." Blowhole muttered.

"I haven't forgotten about you, _Little B_!" Blue's ire turned on the scientist.

"I thought we were old friends," Blowhole answered with a bit more caution as the broken glass still dripping with blood was returned to his attention.

"We aren't old friends; your sister and I are old friends." Blue snapped, though seemed to be calming down slightly.

"Well you obviously aren't as close as Doris described if you were willing to kidnap her and threaten to kill her to keep me in line." Blowhole's calm began to waver at the mention of his sister.

Blue's grip tightened on the glass.

"Leave us." She ordered the guards tersely. Immediately they obeyed. Seconds after they left the glass dropped from Blue's hand shattering on the floor. Blowhole's eyes mapped the shards with wary concern.

"Taking Doris wasn't my choice." Blue looked past Blowhole at the wall behind him. There was a moment of silence as the two evaluated the situation, each thrown off by both players' change in tack.

"But it never occurred to you to release her after the android ran."

"I tried. He said no… You know how unpredictable the Squirrel is. If I disobeyed, I'd have to disappear as fast as the android and he'd kill her anyway. There's been nothing I could do." Blue's tone seemed sincere, though her expression gave the impression that she intended to kill him at any moment, and didn't give a mathematical table about his sister's fate. Well, Blowhole could only think of one reason for this:

"There's security cameras?"

"Multiple. No known blind spots." Blue looked down at the shattered glass, "I can't let you go. I can anticipate your every move. It would be too suspicious."

"If you could do that then you know I've already found a way out."

"No you haven't."

"My dear Blue, I know you like to believe that you are more intelligent, but in truth…"

"Foxtrot Charlie Alpha."

"What?"

"It's what you were thinking of. Manoeuvre Foxtrot Charlie Alpha. I may be smarter than you…"

"That's up for debate."

"… But you took a few hand to hand combat classes with Hans…"

"That wasn't what I was thinking. I was thinking of Alpha Charlie Foxtrot for your information."

"Whatever. I have your word that nothing leaves this room?"

"Except me."

"Very funny. Make it look good."

"I'll visit you in hospital."

"Not that good."

Blowhole found the tunnel under Hoboken displayed in the CCTV footage with ease. After all, during the weeks required to get his plan in motion he'd thought of nothing else but the location of that room, and, well, a way to freeze sound just in case he'd be lucky enough to record his archenemy's final cry. He also knew the ancient tunnels beneath Hoboken as he often used them to get associates out, though he'd never actually been incarcerated there. Still when he found the rusted door handle wouldn't move, he was somewhat taken aback, but then what was he expecting? They would leave the door open? Well, one of his untested explosives made short work of that.

"Doris!" He exclaimed as he rushed into the room, blinded by worry and several metric tonnes of dust from the explosion. However, when the dust settled, he discovered he was alone, "Doris?!"

He would spend the next hour searching every other room she could possibly be in, and another two hours checking them again, but the only other life forms he would find would be rats and spiders.

March 17th

The Android continued to scan the chain of data displayed on the wall. All this did was give him a more personal interpretation than he already had. The next images, documenting most of Rockgut's private and personal life to an unhealthy degree, he merely skimmed through, as he had already been downloaded with most of this. However, he paid more attention when his eyes reached a typewritten report. It wasn't the date or the subject that caught his attention, but the fact that it was apparent the keys of the typewriter it was written on, in some places, mostly towards the end, seemed to have been hit so hard that the characters were almost embossed into the page. As the android read on, he would soon see that the areas in which this phenomena occurred were not at random.

_July 10__th__ 1995_

_This is now the second day of Buck Rockgut's mission. However, I was surprised to see that he seemed to have brought along his __**protégé**__ to the finale of the White Widow's crime spree. I certainly expected this to be the end of her, but amazingly, the __**mission**__ seemed to have __**failed**__. I am documenting the exact happenings for the benefit of future, possibly more objective, analysis._

_Buck Rockgut and the protégé arrived at the Widow's hideout at 0200. The __**protégé seemed to be somewhat disgruntled by this early hour, as someone of his incompetence probably would be**__. (Agent Nigel had no right to send someone so __**unworthy of Buck Rockgut's brilliance and cunning)**__ They waited outside the yacht in a small dinghy, level with the portholes. Rockgut was expertly clad in plain black to blend in with the night, however the protégé chose to wear a slightly dirtied white, thus rendering him visible in the darkness. The ungrateful __**idiot deviates from his teacher's path**__._

_Here is a compilation of my notes on their conversation:_

_Buck Rockgut: Stay frosty, cupcake, the Widow's a tough customer._

_the protégé: Yes, sir._

_Buck Rockgut: You know your part of the plan?_

_the protégé: Yes sir. __**But sir…**_

_Buck Rockgut: You're not bringing that nerd friend of yours, Kowalski. We don't need any of his sciency doo hickies alerting the enemy. I'm no training program. Takin' you on was a one off favour for Nigel._

**_the protégé: No, sir. I just wanted to point out, the White Widow's looking for you, not me. We'd be able to lock down the boat trapping the Widow and all her henchmen…_**

_Buck Rockgut: You're a little slow on the uptake, kid. We scrapped that one 'cause it would take five minutes to get to the engine room and take out the guards. You could only keep her attention two minutes at the most before she gets bored and kills you. She'd know you hadn't gone in along and that I'd be going after the engine room and cut me off in three_

_the protégé: __**but sir**__, she's not looking for me. If she catches you, you'd be able to keep her talking ten minutes, and __**I**__ could slip in undetected. She'd assume you'd gone in alone._

**_Of all the insolence! Buck Rockgut has to be going soft._**_ He went along with it! It is hardly surprising the plan failed, and the __**White Widow would have killed Buck Rockgut**__, had the __**kid **__not __**left his radio behind. **_

_I still don't understand why someone as __**great as Buck Rockgut**__ would __**crumble**__ under pressure from a second level __**underling like Agent Nigel and take on that ungrateful, insubordinate child**__. I still can't __**understand**__ why he __**continuously**__ resists __**my attempts to rid him of the nuisance**__. __**I have been so annoyed by this that I've been tempted to reactivate the Control, though I swore never to temper such genius again. And then to allow himself to be rescued by the snot nosed juvenile. I have yet to see something more disgraceful than the effect the protégé is having on Buck Rockgut.**_

_Follow-up to July 10__th__ 1995 report_

_The grace with which the boy, even if on film, moved I could say is unmatched. Smoothly leaping from one hostile to another, consistently taking them down without fear or blind rage. If only I could apologise for my harsh, rushed judgment of such talent, only hampered from becoming the greatest Penguin commando in all history by his antiquated master. And so I wish to retell the events of July 10__th__ 1995 as they truly happened, no longer seen though the lens of one still trying to resurrect a broken toy._

_Further research has allowed me to discover that The protégé) actually chose the camouflage, which I had condemned as a rookie mistake, after he had studied satellite photographs of the ship, and chose to match his camouflage to the colour of the hull and most of the interiors. Buck Rockgut seemed to be stuck to the false association of the word camouflage to a ninja suit that best belongs in a Halloween party. _

_The protégé's plan needs no explanation of the genius it displays, when one ignores the harsh criticisms I added and reviews only the wording, so if these criticisms are ignored the record of the conversation is perfectly objective. And if anyone is a 'little slow on the up take' it's Rockgut. I still respect his genius, though in its time. He is a relic that became a relic when he took a desk job after my disappearance. Even when he returned to pass his knowledge to this brilliant young man, he had been out of the game too long._

_The radio being left behind was, sadly, a genuine rookie mistake, though an ordinary agent with only a year's experience would probably make twice the mistakes, so I can excuse this. Still, I am sure The protégé's uncanny gut would alert him to the danger, had the radio not been left. I now understand that the shock of seeing one I worshiped as a god for so long surpassed in so sudden a way as being rescued caused me to react so harshly (who could call saving a captured mentor an insult?) For this I apologise, if only to my notes (though I hope someday I will have this young man by my side), for my biased retelling, and for assuming that it was Rockgut who was stopping what I thought at the time were agents of mercy, when in fact The protégé was single handed beating my best operatives._

_I can also see a bit of myself in him. For all my research, The protégé seems to be the only one who knows anything about himself before he was found by Nigel, who was so obviously so overwhelmed by his raw talent. The way the child bears his burden, the way he does not hide his pastlessness as I did, but wears it proudly, is something I admire and fascinates me. I have even framed the first page of his file, so filled with 'Unknowns' and every time I look at it, it reminds me so much of my own. Yes, one day young Skipper shall be by my side._

**The indented text in the report is in bold****_._**


	18. Chapter 18

**March 12****th**

"How are you feeling, Skipper?" Special Agent Marlow asked.

"Much better, sir." Skipper replied as he tossed his standard issue jacket over the chair before taking a seat in another nearby.

"I'm glad your rehabilitation is complete," the senior agent stated, closing the lid of his laptop. They were once again in the large empty conference room just off the medical bay, "I called you here as there are a few things I wanted to get out of the way. The first is merely paperwork; specifically, getting you reinstated you as an agent. Now, I'll need to know your real name." Skipper froze, the specifics of his expression unreadable, though scepticism was certainly present.

"Classified," he replied sharply, "sorry sir."

"Really, Skipper, it's just a formality but it's really quite necessary. Your records were destroyed according to protocol when you were declared missing in action."

"Sorry sir, but it is classified. I'm sure you can understand."

"I need to know, Skipper." The man's tone took on a dangerous, slightly fanatical edge. Skipper's eyes narrowed. If this was going to be a battle of wills, he wasn't going to lose.

"Classified, sir. Charlie Lima Alpha Sierra Sierra India Foxtrot India Echo Delta, sir." Skipper countered in a less than respectful tone.

"Very well, we'll come back to that," Special Agent Marlow seemed strangely displeased by this but forced a reassuring smile, "The second matter is, I'm afraid, somewhat less pleasant."

"Hit me."

"It concerns the LEOPARDSEAL agents that impersonated your team. They're still at large and require… neutralising. I understand there may be some attachment…"

"No sir. None at all." Skipper stated firmly. Marlow smiled in such a way that, had MORT been present the description, "creeeeeeeepy," would have been loudly announced.

"It won't be easy. After all, they were trained by you, so despite the fact I know you aren't one for planning on such operations, I would appreciate it if we did," Skipper's superior placed a plan of the HQ on the table,** "**Now, I thought perhaps it should be just you and two other agents. Shall we say… the Chinstrap sisters? You worked with them on Operation: Hornets' Nest?"

"Wait, didn't… Manfridi and Johnson," The memories flooded back to skipper like a burst dam, "Lost their hearts, a lung and fifteen feet of…"

"Brainwashing, Skipper," Marlow reached across the table, grasping the other man's shoulder firmly, "Remember, those aren't really your memories."

"Sorry sir**. **It'll be nice to work with them again**. **We'll do it March 15th. I know it's short notice but on that particular day I know exactly where everyone will be, and their various habits and routines will keep them separated: Rico will be checking the weapons in the basement, Kowalski will be in his lab and Marlene AKA Arlene Dietrich," Skipper, now recovered, pronounced the name with undisclosed distain, "will be practicing her singing in the living room where Flynn-Godfrey will be listening**. **

**"**I suggest since there's three of us, we go for a three pronged attack,"Skipper pointed to two of the buildings opposite the HQ on the plan, "Team A and B will wait on the south and west sides of the building respectively. Team C, Sadie Chinstrap, will enter via the roof. She can start through the elevator shaft, there are minimal cameras and sensors on the top entrance, then on floor three there's a thin wall between the elevator shaft and an escape tunnel leading to the garage. Team C can blast through the wall and start down the tunnel…"

"What about the weapons?"

"I have the jamming frequency. After she's taken out Rico, she'll start the car and wait for the rest of us," Skipper answered,"Team B, Betty Chinstrap, and Team A, myself, will start on the buildings to the south and west respectively. From there I'll zip line to the floor above Kowalski's lab. That apartment's empty so no one will see me. From there, I'll climb down to the window of the lab, cut through the glass, and silently take him out from won't be too difficult.

"Meanwhile, Team B will have no choice but a full frontal assault, and will zip line directly through the window and into the living she can take Arlene directly, making sure she stays between the door to the garage and the remaining hostile, Flynn. By then I'll be done with Kowalski and will block the other exit."

"Don't you think it would be safer if you took Team B? Both Dietrich and Flynn-Godfrey in one room might be a bit much for Betty if things turn sour?"

"Special Agent Marlow, don't you remember anything about me? I can't hit a woman."

"Indeed… So, what is your extraction plan?"

"We meet in the garage with Rico and Pri…Flynn then head back."

"Skipper, Rico's mind is gone, there's nothing we can do. You can't save him. But Flynn-Godfrey?" Marlow queried, "If you can't do it, I understand…"

"Sir, he's just a kid. He can be retrained…"

"He's a hardened killer. Don't you remember Jordan? Don't you remember DeWinter? He took them out in cold blood!"

"It's just…"

"He isn't really your son, skipper. They took your son years ago." Skipper's eyes met the table for a split second.

"Sorry sir."

**March 25****th**

"Wakey waky, Barry." Slowly the aforesaid teen opened his eyes, trying to make sense of the coloured blobs that surrounded him. Suddenly all the pieces of overwhelming data seemed to come together and, unfortunately, only became more overwhelming.

"Winkies…"

_Barry had been watching the kid for some time. In fact, he was willing to bet he knew him better than he knew himself, and because of this, he hated Private, as he was called by his adopted family, was much the same as him. They were both the same age, roughly the same height, were both receiving 'special training', and most importantly were both targeted by the cult he had now learned to be called Fossa. _

_He could now see Private in the footage from the hidden camera seated on the roof of the HQ on watch, accompanied by a box of peanut butter winkies. He could barely remember the last time he had one of those, seven long years ago. Barry glared at the screen, resisting the urge to destroy it all together._

"I thought that would wake you up," Private explained cheerily, "Skippah always says it wakes me up."

"You…" Barry's eyes darted about the room searching for the Penguin agent who would almost certainly return him to his cell in Hoboken, "You haven't…?"

"I have no idea what you have against Skippah, but I respected your wishes," At this Barry noticeably relaxed, "Now are you going to tell me what happened last night? Maybe I can help."

"No, not even you could help,"Barry muttered. Private seemed somewhat surprised by his choice of words. Barry immediately noticed this, "I mean, it's kinda something I wanna do myself."

"Are you sure?You were half-dead when I found you. I think I at least deserve an explanation."

"Yeah," Barry nodded, still somewhat spaced out, "I'm part of this club… me and a friend of mine. Well, there was someone at school I was angry with, in fact, the whole club was angry was responsible for getting me in… a lot of detentions, not that I didn't kinda deserve them, but he'd done a lot worse first."

"Two wrongs don't make a right."

"Maybe in Raincloud City, or whatever place that sissy show a yours is , the leader of my club said he was gonna find a way to get this kid expelled as payback," Barry didn't even know why he was telling Private all this, though he would later attribute it to a few nasty knocks on the head, "This kid had hurt all of , I did my part of the plan, but then I saw a way to get him, right there and then, and I figured: why go through this elaborate scheme (the leader kid's a little wrong in the head) when I can just get him now? So, I went my own route, and this guy would have gotten expelled if it wasn't for the leader of this club stepping in and telling the principle it was all me. Then he told all the other kids in the club, I was fair game. Well, here I am now." There was a pause after the story ended, the two simply staring at the winkie in Private's hands.

"Barry," Private looked curiously at the teen opposite him, "you don't go to school."

"Um…" Private really had him on that one, "So, enough about me. Did you find out, y'know, about your mother?"

"Yeah."

"Do _I _get an explanation?"

"You were right. It was a professional," Private twisted the wrapping of the winkie backwards and forwards.

"So, the police…"

"It wasn't that simple. The guy who killed my mum… he's the dad of a friend of mine. And this friend of mine found out. He… doesn't… can't believe…"

"I get it."

"Yeah." Private answered hollowly, looking down at the winkie.

"No." Barry paused. Actually feeling guilty for his actions wasn't something he was used to, especially when the source of the guilt had been the very source of his hatred, "I really do get it."

"We both get it." Their eyes for the first time in the conversation met with an understanding previously not shared between the two.

"Lincoln Douglas."

"Maxwell Flynn-Godfrey, 'Tree frog'."

* * *

"What are you trying to pull, Blue?!" Blowhole demanded over the phone as he paced outside the entrance to the Hoboken tunnels.

"You idiot! Do you want to be caught? I'm going to have to track you." The other 'evil genius' hissed.

"Don't you mean: do _you_ want me to get caught?" Blowhole snapped in reply, "She's not here."

"Are you sure you have the right tunnel?"

"Am I sure I've got…! Of course I am! I know the tunnels backwards. Now, tell me where have you moved her?"

"I never moved her!"

"Well, Doris must have gotten her hands on a teleporter, then."

"Look, I've almost got a fix on your location. You need to get moving. I'll make some enquiries. Contact me in an hour."

* * *

"Private? Aren't you hungry?" Marlene asked eyeing the bowl, which was still more than three quarters full, "You did ask for chicken soup?"

"I'm… not so hungry now. Still, thanks all the same for making it."

"I had to give up fish stuffed Brussels sprouts and now Private doesn't even like it?!" Kowalski moaned.

"Nobody likes fish stuffed Brussels sprouts, Kowalski." Skipper stated, in a tone that assured the scientist that his team would never have fish stuffed Brussels sprouts if he had anything to say about it.

"Yuck." Rico concurred. Then Skipper noticed Private was headed towards the kitchen with his bowl.

"Since when did I give you permission to leave the mess, young Private," skipper stated, "Get back here and finish your soup."

"He doesn't have to finish if he doesn't like it," Marlene contradicted. As skipper, amazingly, seemed to have no objection to this, Private continued towards the kitchen. However, he did not stop there, but proceeded to exit into the hall and into the living room, where he entered the passage down to the garage. However, when he arrived with the much-needed dish, he discovered his patient was gone.

* * *

Barry twirled the vial between his well-practiced could hear Private calling out for him from the winkie didn't make this any easier go through with, but hey, maybe the kid would thank him some day. He just about did the job himself with a little encouragement. Well, that was a biased interpretation of the events, but now was not the time to grow a settled, he started the crawl through the various minor secret passages that snaked behind every wall in the HQ and garage in the pitch dark as switching on the lights might alert the team.

His objective was the kitchen. He knew from various dossiers that the coffee with the exotic fish was Skipper's. Nobody else ever touched his coffee, nobody but Skipper would be hurt. In five minutes, Skipper would be dead, and revenge for two years spent in Hoboken, and for the death of Hans the Puffin, one of the few teachers who'd shown him some kindness, would be complete, not to mention Private might find some closure after his mother's murder.

"Ow!" Barry exclaimed. Immediately his hand shot up, searching the dark, confined space for the obstruction.

"Shut up. Regardless of your identity I doubt either of us are supposed to be here!" another voice hissed.

"Blowhole?"

"Who do you think, Barry," The scientist answered, recognising the voice, "Now move out of the way."

"No you move out of the way!"

"This is a matter of life and death."

"Skipper's mine," Barry snapped, "I've got a whole lot more revenges on him than you do, so stand aside."

"Yes you go ahead with your little poisons. You'll just kill everyone _but_ him since Skipper's not there."

"Then who's the guy in the room below? Hm? If you stop talking for a few seconds you may even be able to overhear some top secret Operation: something or other."

"A perfect android duplicate, complete with access to the internet. The Wi-Fi usage, and unidentifiable but suspiciously Kuchikukhan-ish signals emitted prove it."

"Oh, I _really _believe that." Barry returned sarcastically, and had there been decent lighting it would have been clear he was rolling his eyes.

"Barry, why would I…"

"I wasn't born yesterday. You can't trick me into letting you exact revenge first…"

* * *

"So let me get this straight," Skipper repeated sceptically, "You are trying to tell me, that I am, in fact, not me, but a crazy killer android who has imprisoned your sister, then disappeared, being the only person who knows where she is. You also say you only know all this because an equally psychotic and known to be highly _manipulative_, acquaintance who is technically, your enemy, told you."

"And you expect us to believe this." Kowalski finished.

"Well, I planned to do a little more investigating before I so unceremoniously fell through the ceiling, but I am certain enough that _you_ are not dead. Functioning androids are far too rare,"Blowhole answered, "Now tell me where you moved my sister."

"That threat doesn't actually work if _we've_ got _you_." Marlene commented.

"Blowhole, if I had your sister and threatened to kill her, I would currently be on the run from a certain love struck scientist. You'd be the least of my problems."

"Why thank you, Skipper." Kowalski smirked as Blowhole scowled.

"Shut up, Kowalski," Blowhole snipped, before returning his attention to Skipper, "And If you were a brilliant android currently on the run from Penguin enemy no.1 where would you hide?In plain sight, surrounded by a group of blindly loyal renegade agents?"

"Skipper,"Kowalski whispered, though his words were audible to most of the room,"Doris has been unusually quiet, and you have been acting strangely since your return…"

"Do I look like an android to you?" Skipper stated, raising his steaming cup of coffee, which had mysteriously appeared on the table,"Now, knock him out and send off an anonymous tip to Penguin to pick him can go seek psychiatric help for his paranoid delusions in Hoboken. By the way, good Joe, Rico."

Rico, who'd been frowning at the coffee for much of the conversation, cocked his head to the side in a querying fashion, "Ah didn' make tha'."

Only a few feet above them, in the partially collapsed tunnel, Barry smirked.


	19. My Whole Life A Lie? (again)

Skipper stumbled forward a few steps, clutching his head with one hand.

"Skipper…?" Kowalski questioned with a concerned expression, "Are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah, completely," However, the leader was leaning heavily against the sofa, "Right as rain." Meanwhile, Blowhole's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head.

"No… That's impossible…" He stuttered, "You're an android, you can't be…" Suddenly Skipper's knees buckled and he was only saved from hitting the ground by Private, who caught him at the last minute.

"Skipper, you are exhibiting a more extreme version of the effects of the poison you encountered in your misunderstanding with Private," the scientist stated.

"My misunderstanding with Private…?" Skipper repeated his eyes out of focus. However, Kowalski had already rushed off into the lab, returning a few seconds later with a beaker of a clear liquid.

"Lie down," Kowalski ordered.

"Yes, mom." Skipper replied drowsily and obediently followed instructions, lying down on the couch.

"Now, drink this," Kowalski handed Skipper the beaker.

"What's that?"

"The antidote." Only a few seconds after he'd drunk the mixture, Skipper drifted off into unconsciousness.

* * *

March 25th

Skipper sat in his room staring at the wall. They were simple quarters. A room with a bed, a desk, and a wardrobe. On the walls were adorned with a few posters, photographs and certificates that, though he never remembered putting any of them up, seemed like something his younger self would do.

"Skippar…" Immediately Skipper was alert. That semi taunting voice was unmistakeable. Immediately he opened the door, just in time to see someone duck around the corner. Someone about Hans' height and build. Despite the fact he knew Hans was very much on his side, his gut just didn't seem satisfied. His gut had never felt satisfied around the Puffin. He remembered that fish fight too clearly, probably because it was one of the most awkward experiences in his life.

"Hans?" He called cautiously. Suddenly he dived for cover as a bullet narrowly missed his head.

"Did you think I would stop and fish fight? Hm?" This was followed by another pattering of feet as Hans continued to race off into the distance. Immediately Skipper followed, reaching for his own weapon only to find it was not there. That was right: Marlow had told him he couldn't carry a weapon without supervision unless he was an agent.

"Hans! Where's Manfridi and Johnson?" There was no answer. He was now in an unfamiliar part of the base, which looked suspiciously like Blowhole's lair. He looked around, "Hans?"

"Come now, Skippar. I'm only over here." Skipper immediately shot after the voice, entering a nearby room. However, as soon as he saw the interior and its occupants he hid behind one of the gigantic computers, entirely forgetting Hans.

"Sir, doctor Blowhole demands another audience," Skipper heard a voice state. It sounded just like his! He carefully poked his head around the corner. It looked just like him! Well, it had to be Kuchikukhan's android. However, a greater shock was yet to come.

"Of course he does!" Marlow snapped in a fake Russian accent, "cut off one of Doris' fingers or something. That should get Mr I'm-all-sciency-genius back in line." Well, this certainly wasn't the Marlow he knew unless it was some kind of joke.

"But if it's about the control? He's been projecting the Puffin again and we gave him absolutely no clearance to do so."

"Then you should have better controls!" the Marlow snapped, "Check on the protégé. Make sure the signal never reached him. The Red Squirrel did not plan for so long only to be messed up by Dr Mammal-fish."

The Red Squirrel. Well, this was now the second time this week he discovered his whole life was a lie. Still, he had no time to debate just what was true and false, he had to get back to his quarters before the Android found out he was missing. He checked that the Squirrel's attention was focused squarely on his acorn cookie and attempted to duck out into the hallway.

"You ninnycompoopy!" Marlow shouted at his digital double, "You made me drop my cookie!" Skipper looked around just in time to see the Red Squirrel, who had turned around to retrieve his cookie, look back at him. Without a seconds hesitation the man yelled: "Get the protégé!"

* * *

"You discovered a drinkable antidote?" Blowhole remarked dryly.

"No, I haven't had time the last few days," Kowalski remarked as he checked Skipper's pulse, under too much stress to bother to take false credit, "I just needed to knock him out. We don't have time to chase him all over New York to get him to take a shot." This said, Kowalski rushed off in the direction of the lab to prepare an antidote, the other members of the team following to see if they could be of assistance, leaving Blowhole in the room with Marlene and an unconscious skipper.

"You seem amazingly calm." Blowhole commented, noting the lack of hysteria on Marlene's part, "how many times has he been poisoned this week?"

"There's nothing I can do," Marlene answered, "you only get in the way if you make a fuss, so there's no sense running around like a headless chicken."

"Admirable mind-set." Blowhole stated in reply. The room once more lapsed into almost perfect silence, ignoring the sound of the streets outside, and the clinking that resulted from Blowhole's experiments with the inescapable handcuffs, which were more out of boredom and the possibility of copying Kowalski's design than hope of escape.

"If Skipper's not the android, where do you think it is?" Marlene asked.

"Why do you ask?"

"I might be able to help."

"Well, the answer would be that I have absolutely no idea." At this, Marlene looked slightly surprised.

"You're seriously admitting that?"

"I might be saying that to convince you that I don't know in order to disguise the fact that I do know."

"Or you could be saying that to disguise the fact that you actually don't know."

"Or I could be saying that knowing that you would assume that, thus…" Blowhole paused, noticing that Marlene had gotten up and was walking towards the table on which Kowalski had placed the keys to the handcuffs, quite deliberately within sight of Blowhole, "What are you doing?"

"Letting you go," Marlene stated, approaching the scientist, "I've got nothing against you, and from what I hear your sister's a nice girl, if misguided by certain _persons_." Marlene was now stood directly in front of the scientist, the keys in hand.

"Well, to I get to leave, sometime this year?"

"There's a catch."

"I'm not turning myself in."

"I'll let you go, if you allow Doris to date Kowalski."

"Now wait a minute…"

"Or you can go to Hoboken, and the android will kill your sister, followed by you."

Blowhole weighed the odds in his mind. It was unlikely Barry was going to come back for him, so he didn't exactly have much of a choice.

"Marlene, did you ever consider going into politics?" Blowhole sighed, "Alright, you have a deal."

"Pleasure doing business with you. I'll let Kowalski know you've escaped."

"Where'd Blowhole go?" Kowalski asked, carrying a syringe that would have scared the living daylights out of Skipper into the room, though his attention was focused more on his patient.

"He went to find his sister." Marlene answered, standing as close behind the scientist as she could without crowding him. She watched as Kowalski removed the air bubbles, then sanitized the area of skin. The needle had just entered the skin, when Kowalski screamed:

"Private, hit the emergency protocol now!"

"What?" Private queried.

"DO IT!"

Errors detected:

All movement functions: offline

Wireless: offline

Warning: attempt to achieve data detected

"I swear this is a violation of my civil rights, paralysing me." The android protested, opening his eyes, scanning the room around him.

"You're an android." Kowalski answered coldly.

"I don't see how that makes any difference."

"Where's Skipper?" Marlene demanded.

"I have absolutely no idea."

"I warn you, android, we will search your memory contents…" Kowalski threatened.

"You did try, and failed." At this, the android had a point. Kowalski looked from one member of the room to the next. He'd really run out of ideas. This kind of thing was more Skipper's specialty.

"_There's…_ _There's antimony, arsenic, aluminium, selenium,  
and hydrogen and oxygen and…_" Kowalski's phone sang. The number that appeared on the screen was not one he was expecting.

**Kowalski's ringtone is part of the first verse of the Elements Song by Tom Lehrer**


	20. The Bad Guy Wins

"_Here's the deal_," The Blue Hen stated, "_I know where Skipper is, and I'll tell you if you give me the android._"

"What?" Kowalski at first thought he hadn't heard correctly, "You have Skipper, and you want to trade for the android?"

"_Exactly. Take it or leave it. I'll be at the Hoboken Steel Mill in three hours." _ The call ended.

The room's occupants looked at each other. They'd heard everything; Kowalski had put on speakerphone.

"Well, let's get going." Kowalski announced standing up, the decision made. He was the leader, now that skipper had turned out to be an evil killer robot, right? Private, on the other hand, looked horrified by the statement.

"You can't do that K'walski!" the youngest member of the team protested.

"I agree with Private," Marlene concurred, "We don't have the right to send on person to their death, no matter what they've done."

"But paralysing me is just dandy," the android interrupted sarcastically. Kowalski stood up, motioning for rest of the team to follow.

"Marlene, I don't think you're getting this," Kowalski stated, "No matter how realistic he is, you need to remember he's not alive. He's a computer created to simulate Skipper. He may kiss like the real thing…"

"I never kissed him," Marlene protested.

"Now, Skipper, the real Skipper, he's very much alive and currently seems to be held by someone who obviously doesn't have his best interests at heart. Now, let us say Skipper is somehow teleported back here. We then turn the android over to Penguin. What do they do? Take him apart to find out what makes a fascinating invention like _it_ tick."

"Alright K'walski," Private argued, "So you're telling me that you would be perfectly fine with destroying MORT?"

"Well…"

"Yes or no?" Marlene pressed.

"If Skipper was in danger and it was the only way to say him, yes I would!" Kowalski finally snapped, "Listen, I really didn't want to pull rank, but at the end of the day, I'm in charge. We're handing him over."

* * *

Skipper opened his eyes a fraction and was stunned by the blinding light.

"The Red… The Red Squirrel…" he muttered, still semi dazed.

"Indeed," came a voice from the darkness, "Indeed, indeed, indeed," then suddenly a face interrupted the binary composition of the blinding white and the pitch black, "SKIPPER!"

"Why can't Rico get captured for once." Skipper complained, exploring the nature of the bonds that held him to the chair. Forty years of low profile obviously hadn't done much for his sanity.

"Do you recognise them?" the Squirrel answered the unspoken question, "Kowalski's Inescapable Handcuffs? The same ones that you were chained to two of three of the only women you have ever truly loved with. Hm?" The revelation of this knowledge was a new turn in events to Skipper, as the third woman not even his team knew of. The Squirrel had to be bluffing.

"If you were trying to surprise me, better have tried, better have failed."

"Oh, I know all about you," the Squirrel continued to muse, ignoring Skipper's comment, "I know all about Arlene, and Kitka, and, Oh yes…," the Squirrel smiled deviously, "Lola."

At this Skipper could not contain his surprise, but quickly regained his composure, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Lola. Now that would be a name you haven't heard in a long time," the Squirrel fondled a lock of Skipper's hair, "Oh, yes, only you, me, and Nigel know about that. The only person to break you," the Squirrel smiled deviously, "until today."

"She never broke me," Skipper lied, "and you won't."

"Oh yes she did. You gave her your young foolish heart, and she sold you out to Blowhole," the Squirrel revelled in skipper's alarmed reaction, "changed your entire life from the rose tinted world you saw as Rockgut's apprentice into… well, we both knew what the loss turned you into."

Skipper gave no answer.

"London, Lincoln Nebraska, Operation: OPENSANDWICH, to name a few," The Squirrel continued, "Oh yes, and Operation: Hornet's Nest, AKA the Hornet House assassination."

"If you think I feel guilt, think again. They were missions. I only followed orders."

"No, I didn't think you would care, after all we are so alike, but to think you killed your wife, orphaned your own son when he was only a boy? And years after you decided to forget her? Even I wouldn't do that."

"Private is not my son," Skipper snapped, telling the truth. He wasn't that old, "I don't have a son."

"Technically you adopted him, but it sounds so much more dramatic to say he's your son," The Squirrel replied, "Now, tell me Skipper, what is your real name?"

"I don't know." Apparently, the Squirrel's trip down memory lane hadn't had the effect the Squirrel expected.

The Squirrel's eye widened, glaring, comically in any other situation, glaring at his captive. His hand shot out from the side, knocking Skipper to the floor.

"What is your name?!"

"I don't know."

"Oh, I see your game," The Squirrel leered, his boot pressing his captive's head into the cold cement floor, "But you will tell me. I'm certain of it."

"Yeah, well you tell _me_ when you start running out of tricks in fifteen minutes."

* * *

"Oh my…" Kitka gasped staring at the interior of the lobby.

"Now do you understand that you are in way over your head," Nigel stated, forcing the woman to continue further into the room by unceremoniously jerking the handcuffs that joined their wrists.

"I didn't realise… I just wanted Skipper to…"

"Love you? My dear, when he finds out just what you were part of I doubt if he'll allow you within a ten mile radius."

"I didn't know they would convince him they were all Squirrel drones…" Kitka pleaded, though what horrified her more was that he'd gone through with killing everyone in the building. Even the Skipper she though she once knew wouldn't be able to do that. How far had she pushed him...?

It was then Nigel noticed that Kitka had buried her face in her arm. Immediately he snatched it away, forcing her to look at one of the many dead agents scattered about the floor in front of her, "I need you to understand what you've done."

"What do you want from me?" Kitka snapped, half crying as she fought against Nigel's grip. She couldn't bear to see what she'd been part of, "I get it! I went too far! Send me to Hoboken already."

"So they can kill you? You've been quite instrumental in getting Skipper into this mess and you are going to get him out," Nigel switched on a nearby computer at one of the receptionist's desks, pushing the late receptionist aside with cold disregard, "My hunch was correct. We just need to catch him before he does something stupid."

Rockgut sat on one of the chairs in the vault room, the open door behind him. His head was slumped, his blood stained hands drawn into fists.

"Rockgut." The one word spoken in that measured English accent brought on a completely new torrent of emotions.

"1972." Rockgut spoke, trying to match the resolve of the previous speaker, though his reply was directed at the floor, "Why didn't I guess?"

"What happened here?" Kitka asked. One of Rockgut's eyes momentarily rose to look at the speaker, burning with hatred, though this soon turned inward.

"Don't you know?" Rockgut stated. It was clear on Nigel's face how it saddened him to see Buck Rockgut, the greatest penguin commando in history in such a state, "Oh no, you wouldn't. You just followed orders. Said what they told you to say, did what they told you to do. What did you promise him? The world? The universe? Or just someone he thought he could shout 'Honey, I'm home' to."

Nigel pursed his lips, "You're making no sense…" Suddenly Rockgut was on his feet, glaring at the other agent.

"I'm making no sense?! What were you? Born yesterday? Of course I'm making no sense!" Rockgut turned to the open door behind them, "Look at all of this! I did it! Me and Skipper did it! I tricked him into doing this!" he settled back to his chair, "I… heard all of it. I… knew exactly what I was doing, but somehow I thought it was right, I couldn't stop myself… Then I realised. I tried to hide him, I had no time to warn him, but they stopped me."

"Please, sir, start from the beginning," Kitka pleaded, "We need to know where they took him." Suddenly Rockgut sprung up again, grabbing the woman by her shoulders and shaking her violently.

"It's the Control! They've activated it!" Suddenly his rage disappeared and he resumed his place on the chair, "For god's sake, Nigel… don't let him ever find out. Tell him anything, just don't… It would break him. Just like they want."

* * *

"I will tell you a story," The Squirrel stated, "Once upon a time there was a man who, like some sleep walk, would fight in his sleep."

"Yeah, Leonard, I know him." Skipper interrupted sarcastically.

"Once upon a time, this man, who was not Leonard, had a nightmare. He dreamed that the whole world had become zombies," The Squirrel lifted Skipper back up from the ground by his hair, to which he didn't even receive a wince, "and he was so convinced, that climbed out of bed in his sleep, grabbed his gun from his dresser, and shot his entire family. Of course ethically it is debatable as to how at fault he was, but he still beat himself up over it."

"And that story is entirely made up."

"Now, let us imaging this man had not been dreaming, but by slowly, psychologically breaking him down, turning everything he knew and believed, everything he lived for, upside down, convinced him that the last people he had not yet been turned against were shall we say, Squirrel drones?" It was then the whole pieces fell into place in Skipper's mind, and the Squirrel could see in the man's eyes, that had been the final straw, "yes Skipper, there was nothing wrong with the people in Penguin HQ."

**Alright, this story is starting to get pretty dark, however, this is as dark as it gets, before things should start getting better, starting from the next chapter, where Julian, Maurice, and MORT finally catch up with the Penguins.**


	21. Leadership Doesn't Grow on Trees

"_Skipper! Incoming!" Was all Rockgut had time to shout as the crate toppled down from the pile and to where Skipper stood. Immediately the young agent dived out of the way, leaving several of the Fossa he had previously been fighting to be crushed in his stead._

"_You'll have to do better than that!" skipper laughed as he sprinted up the crates, kicking his attacker in the face, knocking the fossa off the ten foot stack of crates, to concrete floor below, "Where do they train these guys, Rockgut? Clown sch…"_

_Skipper was not given time to finish his sentence as he saw another hostile, not a Fossa sneak up behind Rockgut. In one flowing movement, he jumped from the stack of crates he stood on, to the next, setting up a perfect shot, only to realise his gun wasn't there. Thinking quickly, he caught the attacker's attention, a straw haired youth a few years older than himself in a white lab coat, buying him time to grab a knife from one of the unconscious Fossa. He quickly threw the knife, and dived to the floor of the crates, making sure his reckless action was not his last. The attacker attempted to duck under the knife, but was too slow, catching him across his right eye as he screamed in agony._

"_Stick to the lab, kiddo," Skipper quipped as the youth had no choice but to run. The final threat neutralised, skipper hopped down to the floor next to Rockgut._

"_Next time don't mess around so much," Rockgut grumbled, ignoring Skipper's offer of a hand up._

"_Hey, I just saved your life grandpa. I think Nigel would call it 'good courtesy' to thank me."_

"_Yeah, well, I'm not Nigel," Rockgut countered gruffly, brushing himself off. Suddenly his eyes widened with fear, "Skipper look out!"_

"_What…?!" _

* * *

_Skipper trudged into the noisy recruits mess, carrying his tray._

"_Well, well, well," an older recruit stood up from his table, "If it isn't the almighty Skipper."_

"_Not today, Johnson." Skipper responded wearily, taking a seat at a table by himself._

"_Enjoy your vacation, precious?" Johnson continued to mock, "You know, we don't get vacations."_

"_I wasn't on vacation," Skipper snapped irritably without lifting his eyes from his food, "If you have to know, I was in hospital recovering from a bullet in my intestine."_

"_Hmph. More like you tripped over your own rifle in drill." Johnson continued. To this, he received no answer, "Hey, I'm talkin' to you, precious!" He still received no answer. Skipper would normally think of some witty comeback to put the persistent upstart in his place, but he really didn't feel like it today. He still had his doubts about whether he'd recovered enough to be discharged from the hospital, or if they were just running out of beds, "You think you're something special, don't you, hm?" Johnson taunted, swaggering up to Skipper, "Your special little internship with Buck Rockgut, your little 'top secret' 'my eyes only' missions. Heck, you've got your own little code name cause you're name's just too important for us lowly recruits to know. Why don't tell us your little name, skipps?"_

"_It's classified, Johnson." Skipper snapped._

"_Well it's not gonna be for long," Johnson gloated raising his fist. Suddenly, though expectedly, he punched, but the fist never reached the intended target. Faster than a flash of lightning Skipper had blocked the punch and countered, sending the other recruit stumbling backwards, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, "That's it, Skipps. You've asked for it. Now Rico's gonna teach you a lesson."_

"_I pity the team leader you get assigned to." Skipper muttered._

"_You're in the recruits mess, precious. No mommy Rockgut to save you here." Johnson announced, as a recruit from near the back of the mess marched forward, the others clearing a path. Rico was a good foot and a bit taller than him, not to mention much stronger. It was also rumoured that he was a master of smuggling weapons out of the training areas, so was possibly the most highly armed man on the base, apart from Rockgut. Rico smiled his crazed smile, the scar on the side of his mouth rippling. Skipper stood up from the bench. The two simply looked at each other. Skipper gave no sign of fear, neither was he exhibiting confidence. This unnerved Rico, which was entirely Skipper's intention. Suddenly Rico swung a punch. He was faster than Skipper expected, but…_

"What are you doing in here?" the Squirrel demanded with more than a note of panic. The android turned around. He wasn't quite sure how to react in such a situation.

"Interesting reading," the android commented. He was caught with his hands in the cookie jar, why hide it? Anyway, this was a good opportunity to find out about the real Skipper from source other than files.

"You shouldn't have looked at those." The Squirrel stated. There was something about his tone the android could only conclude did not bode well for him. It was then that he noticed the reflection in lense of the security camera above: the Squirrel was holding some kind of detonator like button behind his back, "Now, we may have gotten off on the wrong foot," the Squirrel crooned, "Why don't we resume our meeting elsewhere?" The Squirrel still had his finger on that button. It was then the android detected a slight hum coming from the floor.

Suddenly the android realised what the Squirrel was trying to do. He moved as if he was going to step on the electrified area of floor, but instead made a dive for one of the nearby windows, smashing though, and landing on the ground only a few feet below. Immediately he took off running across the wet pavement, towards the garage. He might have the head start, but where could he hide? He was outnumbered. It was then he realised there was only one place he could hide.

"Underlings! Capture him!" the squirrel ordered, though he knew this probably wouldn't happen. He might be a poor imitation of the real Skipper, but he knew every tactic and escape Skipper had ever used.

"Sir, Julian King's close to locating the penguins." An underling poked his head through the door.

"Indeed. Where are they?"

"On their way to the airport the penguins arrived back from Spain at."

"Bribe someone to send them on a wild goose chase."

* * *

Julian King, his adviser Maurice and MORT marched through the airport.

"Excuse me, people, comin' through," Maurice announced, forcing his way through the crowd for his employer.

"I am not getting dis!" Julian King complained, "All de clues point to de penguins being at dis airport?"

"Well, your majesty," Maurice replied, "I spoke to the people at the desk, and they said that just a few hours ago…"

"I think magical fairies took dem to de lunicorn land." MORT interrupted.

"Hm, you know Mort," Julian puzzled, "I am thinking you might be having a point."

"Your majesty," Maurice sighed, "what happened was…"

"I know what happened!" Julian exclaimed, striking so dramatic and comical a pose that several heads turned, "De penguins have angered de Sky Spirits, and de Sky Spirits have taken dem away to de worst place…"

"De bossy penguin said he would claw his own eyes out before he would be going to Hoboken." MORT offered.

"MORT, you are de genius!" Julian exclaimed, "dey have been magically transported to Hoboken!"

Maurice all but rolled his eyes, "Or they could have taken that plane to Grrfrrjicklestan like the desk said."

"No, dat is so improbable," Julian waved the suggestion away, "Now, To De Hoboken!"

* * *

"Are we there yet?" Marlene asked irritably.

"Does this look like Hoboken to you?" Kowalski snapped, his eyes glued to the map as they had been for the last hour. Marlene still wasn't sure she felt safe with Rico driving the small cart, but the thing had a max speed of twenty mph, what damage could be done? Of course, on the other hand, it didn't get them there very fast, and there was always a chance that that Alice they stole the zoo cart from would catch up to them.

"No, it looks like the sewers."

"Well, did you want to just drive up to, I don't know how many people we're up against: Blowhole, Barry, and the Blue Hen are or have been involved, then they have advanced technology like the android, I do have to admit it's programming…"

"Hoover dam! When will you stop calling me 'it'?" the android snapped from the back of the zoo cart.

"Say one more thing and I swear I will deactivate you now no matter what the Blue Hen says." Kowalski growled. He'd been listening to the android's complaints about his installing a failsafe switch to automatically shut him down, "Back to what I was saying, if you just want to…"

"K'walski," Private began to object, "You really shouldn't shout at Marlene like that…"

"Oh not you too now, Private!" Kowalski snapped, "How did Skipper deal with all this?!"

Meanwhile, the android was paying little to no attention to the shouting match, doing his best to block it out. He'd actually resorted to trying to count the number of pipes he passed, since there was no internet connection down in the sewers. He was doing precisely that, in fact, when he when he noticed a dark shadow, barely there for more than a second, as they rounded a corner. Blowhole!

"Well, I think it's too easy, the Blue Hen making that deal. There's other stuff going on." Marlene objected.

"The android practically admitted that the Blue Hen wanted to make sure certain damaging pieces of information didn't make it back to her mysterious new boss," Kowalski answered, "It's perfectly logical."

"I keep telling, you it's the Red Squirrel." The android sighed, trying to take his mind off his impending doom.

"Yeah right," Kowalski answered, "the Red Squirrel's a myth."

"But don't you think getting that information was too easy?" Marlene asked sceptically, returning to the original conversation.

"Really Marlene, you're starting to sound like…" Kowalski didn't finish the sentence.

"What? Skipper?" Marlene questioned, "Skipper was right some times."

The android saw the shadow again. It had to be Blowhole. Marlene had let him go, right?

"How fast are we going, Rico?" the android asked, barely masking the fear in his voice, "I think we should speed up a little."

"But by speeding up," Private began to question, "wouldn't you just be, y'know…"

"Rico, I authorize you to increase to maximum speed." The android interrupted before Private could announce the predominant flaw in his argument.

"Ah right." Rico replied, increasing the speed. He was so used to obeying commands issued by Skipper's voice that this was done almost automatically.

The cart sped up as Rico swerved from side to side on the narrow catwalk. Suddenly it seemed to lose control crashing into the wall, though gladly not in the central canal filled with stuff even Kowalski wouldn't want to analyse.

"Very clever, android." Kowalski snapped, surveying the damage. Ironically, the android was in fact, not happy with the result, and was far more focused on calculating the time it would take Blowhole to catch up with them. However, when Kowalski examined the wheels, he noticed their crash was no accident. Entangled around the wheels were barbed chains.

"That doesn't look good."

**10 minutes later**

"_That doesn't look good_," Marlene mocked, "understatement of the century."

"My choice of words, unlike yours, did not have the benefit of hindsight," Kowalski snapped in reply.

"Alright, ladies," the gigantic form of the Rat King approached the cages in which the team were restrained, "how'd you get him out? ' Cause nobody gets past us."

"Get who out?" Kowalski queried. He hadn't seen the Rat King in over a year, and had been under the impression the criminal was safely locked away in Hoboken.

"Very funny. Come on, how'd you get past my boys?"

"Ah so we must be close to where they're…"

"If you report to your boss," the android interrupted, "you'll find out that 50 of your 'boys' surrounding my cell are now lying unconscious, or screaming their heads off in pain." The android could see the Rat consider this for a few seconds, to the point of seeming slightly shocked.

"Well, it looks like it's time for that rematch, then." The Rat announced smugly, regaining his composure.

"On three, we rush him when he opens the door…" Skipper began to whisper.

"So, where are they holding Skipper?" Kowalski queried. If the android couldn't be deactivated with the push of a button, he would have slapped Kowalski right then and there.

"Wait a minute," the Rat King suddenly reached through the bars of the cage, grabbing the android's arm at the same time as pulling a knife from his pocket. He promptly sliced the synthetic skin, his suspicions confirmed by the metal beneath, "You're that android! Well, no need to keep you guys around anymore."

"Congratulations Kowalski, you've officially gotten us all killed." The android commented sarcastically.

"Boss? We've found someone else in the tunnel," one of the Rats shouted, drawing the attention away from the team, "We think they were following them or something." Suddenly, the android was actually worried.

"Blowhole." He whispered. His optical sensors searched the room for any possible way out.

"Be taking your disgustingy sewery hands off me!" a voice exclaimed. Immediately, the android relaxed. As annoying as his files told him the lemurs were, they were not Blowhole.

"I wonder how much we can get from this guy," a Rat laughed.

"You kiddin' me, this is Julian King!" a second concurred.

"Say, wouldn't the Blue Hen pay a decent price for the penguins?" the first added.

"Hm…" the Rat King thought, releasing his grip on the android's arm. Kowalski was almost sure, before the android pulled his jacket back over it, the Rat King had left a hand shaped dent, "you got a point there…" the Rat King then left the room, apparently to find a telephone.

"Right." Kowalski stated, looking about the cell.

"Solid iron, covered in rust proof paint. All joins secure." The android reported.

"I knew that! Anyway, um, Rico, do you have a lock pick?" Rico then made a gesture to the effect that, they had taken his backpack.

"Here." Marlene handed the man a hairpin, with which he proceeded to pick the lock.

Now stood outside the cage, and having released Julian and companions, Kowalski once again surveyed the area.

"The door's obviously locked… Air vents!" Kowalski rushed towards the aforesaid area, "Noise echoing through vent is too distorted to distinguish source of sound… probability of sound being traffic, 8.312x10(23.2256-(5+77.23456))÷4432≤637.22x(237.8907+8.789)… Yes, we should go that way."

"Considering the fact we're in an 'evil lair', isn't it more likely to be I don't know, a large group of people we really don't want to run into?" The android countered sarcastically.

"Even considering that, it is by far the lower probability. We are going this way." Julian looked from one person to the other, MORT finally asking the question that was going through all their minds: "Why is de bossy penguin not doing de bossing?"

"Well, um…" Kowalski began to stutter.

"It's a training exercise," the android stated, "I've given Kowalski control of the unit for today, to allow him to learn by experience, he's better off following me."

"Now wait a…"

"Let's Get going before they come back. Rico, you take point. Civilians after that," interrupted, before continuing in a quieter tone, "no need to let the fact Skipper's been captured end up on Julian's blog."

**10 minutes after that**

"Kowalski, four words: I. Told. You. So." The android shouted over the battle cries and gunfire, "your way dropped us smack bang in the middle of a room full of highly armed Rats." The team were crouched behind various crates, using up precious little ammunition found on their side of the room only just keeping the advancing Rats at bay.

"Well I nearly got Skipper's location," Kowalski protested.

"You really thought he would tell you? If you hadn't interrupted, I would have convinced him A) not to call in reinforcements from Blue to save his own reputation, because he'd have to report his supposed casualties, B) and bought you some time while he prepared for his mano y mano against me…"

"Alright, so now _I'll_ get us out of here," Kowalski paused, making mental calculations, "Ok, I can rewire the door in the corner while someone else covers," Kowalski shouted out to the team, "or we can try and get back up through the vent, or we can…"

"They're getting, closer K'walski, what do we do?!" Private panicked.

"I don't know, they all have about the same probability of success… Oh, Newton what am I supposed to do? Skipper normally decides which option… Ow!" the android had slapped the scientist across the face, stunning him.

"Eeny meeny miny, mo," the android snapped, "I don't really care."

"Alright, I'll reprogram the door," Kowalski chose, "Private, I want you to cover me from an approximately 40 degree angle, Marlene covering his blind spots. Rico, set up a distraction by rewiring that EMP pulse generator to explode, with a radius of at least three meters, no more than 3.782. Understand?"

"Wha?"

"Good. You do that by splicing the green and blue wires together, and cutting the sixteen safety overload fuses and wires, now go! Android, set up the catapult to fire simultaneously by removing the safety chip, looping the control wires, and locking the battery power supply."

"I don't speak nerd lingo, and I've got no internet connection!" the android shouted back.

"Good, plan executes… now!"

**5 minutes later**

"Looks like we got you cornered," the Rat King smirked, taking his time as he eyed the eight unarmed opponents, who'd not only completely blown the electric door, locking it permanently, but backed themselves into a corner, across the room from all other opportunities of escape.

"Good Mendeleev and the alternate versions of the periodic table, what do I do!"

At this, the android knew what he had to do. Sure, he was risking being deactivated, but a small chance of survival was better than none at all.

Kowalski, however, seemed to have chosen that moment to give it another attempt, "Right, Rico, try to reinstate power to the door by…"

"Private, give me your bag of marbles!" the android shouted, before turning to the Rat King: "Hey! Yes, you, you poor excuse for a rodent!"

"Why, you little…" the Rat growled, "Smash them into pulp!" immediately the Rats charged forward, just as Skipper tipped the bag of marbles onto the floor, sending the front line tumbling into those before them in a domino like effect.

"Rico, Private! Maneuverer 80 Zulu!" the android commanded.

"Wait, Rico…!" Kowalski began to object, but was ignored as Rico lifted the boy up to ceiling height allowing him to grab the lose pipes, swinging from one to the next.

"My, my, don't you all look silly!" Private shouted, gaining the Rats' attention, all of which proceeded to try to fight their way towards the boy, like iron filings to a magnet.

"Go, go, go!" Skipper commanded, leading the way, though not much stealth was required, around the preoccupied Rats and towards the unguarded air vent, which they proceeded to climb into, "All clear Private!" was the signal for the boy to clamber towards the ceiling vent, and follow the rest of the team, "Well done boys, mission accomplished."


	22. Escape

"_What is your name, Skipper?" the Squirrel crooned, "Why don't you tell me? It can't be that bad."_

"_I…" skipper stuttered through the torrent of thoughts that raged through his head, "My… My name's Hans. Hans Svenson."_

"_Very funny." The Squirrel snarled._

"…_N… Nigel suspected you'd brainwashed Rockgut in 1972, when he worked it out that he'd taken the money from the bank from the CCTV footage…" _

"_Continue." The squirrel ordered, intrigued._

"… _He created the identity of Skip… Skipper to infiltrate Rockgut's department," Skipper paused, for the first time looking up at the man, "I don't care what you do, just make sure my wife never knows…"_

"_You disappeared on a mission and never came back," the Squirrel reassured hurriedly, "then who was Hans?"_

"_My nephew Geert. He took over being me as a way of getting my attention, by messing up the mission."_

"_Then who is the Geert whom you encountered last year?"_

"_I don't know. I think Nigel sent him to hunt me down after I went rogue." Hans. Skipper couldn't believe he hadn't thought of this earlier. There was nobody or earth, or even on the moon, that could verify his actual identity, and if his head didn't hurt like a word he wouldn't say in front of Private, he'd find it pretty funny, "How… The HQ…"_

"_It's alright, my boy," The Squirrel looked down at the younger man as he switched on the lights, "I have what I want."_

* * *

The team had set up camp in a field as by the time they'd escaped the sewers, without adequate transport there was no point in continuing. The android sat outside his tent (Rico had gotten his backpack back, though how he did this in the chaos, none could fathom) analysing the stars, glad to finally have access to the internet. He could hear the team discussing his actions, as well as how much longer he'd have to keep up the Skipper façade.

He didn't know whether he was happy to play the role, or despised it. It was so close to his dream: being Skipper. He'd always been told by Kuchikukhan, by the miscreants working for the Red Squirrel, and even by the team themselves, there was only one Skipper. He'd never met this Skipper, and he had to admit, his greatest fear was that, when he did, he wouldn't be nearly half the man this espionage community rising legend was supposed to be.

"Why do they all keep calling you Skipper?" was the first sign MORT made of his presence.

"Because I…" Skipper paused, "Because I _am_ Skipper." He was Skipper. If someone asked him his name, that was what he would reply, right? But then he couldn't be Skipper. There couldn't be two Skippers.

"Then why are you getting de emaily?" the device asked. It was then the android realised MORT hadn't made a sound out loud.

"I…" The android searched for an adequate excuse: one of Kowalski's inventions had gone wrong and granted him the power to communicate via email? A bit sci-fi-ish, but then so was his mere existence.

"I won't tell anyone." MORT reassured.

"Thanks." The android replied, though he felt more comfortable actually talking.

"You've got de Flippy and de Lobsters song?" MORT asked his attention span for the deep and sentimental ended.

"Uh, yeah," the android answered, wondering just how many of his files MORT could see, "Doris gave it to me."

"May I copy it?" MORT asked politely.

"Go ahead, you can transfer it if you want, I'm not much of a music person."

The two artificial intelligence endowed machines sat in silence as MORT downloaded his file.

"I don't know what I should do, Marlene," the android could hear Kowalski sigh, "I can't do this leadership thing, I'm the options guy."

"The android seems to know what he's doing." Marlene stated.

"Would you let Blowhole lead? I can't take that kind of a risk with the team, but then I seem to have nearly gotten us all killed more times than him."

"Private…"

"I know he says that if I can't take it, he's more than happy to step up, but he's just so… young, naive. There's a lot of stuff we try to shield him from. Being leader…"

"I get it. He's not quite ready for the big bad world."

"He's only sixteen, Marlene. My greatest worry at that age was getting my creative writing homework in on time…"

Suddenly the android realised the connection had been broken.

"You…" the device stuttered. It was then the android realised what MORT had found.

"It's not what you think…" the android began to deny.

"You're going to… de bossy penguin…?"

"I…" The android was really starting to like the little device. It was probably the only other device he'd ever been able to relate to, "yes." The android though back over the plan. He'd contacted the Blue Hen while he was supposedly unconscious as soon as he knew his capture was inevitable, before Kowalski had shut him down with the emergency protocol, and made an agreement: She would call the team, making an offer to trade him for Skipper, thus insuring that he would be taken along on the mission. He'd originally asked for Skipper's location, but the Blue Hen had said she had no idea, and he did believe her. The only person apart from Rockgut, who was probably having some kind of paranoid breakdown by now, who could have any hope of finding the Red Squirrel was the team. In return, he'd deliver her Kowalski.

"But de bossy penguin…"

"I'm just as good, or better than him," the android frantically attempted to justify his actions, not only to MORT, but to himself, "I never did the things he did… there's a lot of people he hurt, they could finally rest. Private… Private I'd let him date that girl, Cupid, introduce him to his father, allow him to settle down and make some friends. I could fix Skipper's mistakes, 'cause I didn't make them, I can admit I was wrong…"

If an electronic device could cry, that would be exactly what MORT was doing.

"I like de bossy penguin…" MORT sniffled, "he helped me getting over de feet…"

"MORT, don't you understand? I have to be Skipper. Otherwise, I don't know who I am. And there's only one – can only be – one Skipper."

* * *

"Right, we've obviously missed Blue's deadline by two days," the android announced at 0700 the next morning, "However, considering the fact that the Red Squirrel…"

"The Red Squirrel is a myth." Kowalski interrupted, only to be shot with one of Skipper's frighteningly familiar glares.

"…has achieved his objective, we can assume that she will be willing to wait as long as we don't give the impression we are trying to double cross her."

"So, are we still going to the abandoned factory, Skippah?" Private asked.

"Ask Kowalski." The android replied.

"Wait, why are you asking de options guy?" Julian questioned. Skipper, as the team had started to call him, all but Kowalski, was surprised he was even up this early.

"Well, despite Kowalski's less than successful leadership yesterday, the mission is still very much his." Skipper replied.

"And what is de mission?"

"Classified."

"Oh I am to definitely be coming!" Julian exclaimed. Immediately Kowalski and the android's eyes met.

"Give me some options, Kowalski." The android hissed.

"Give him some more information." Kowalski replied in an equally hushed tone.

"What?"

"Make him think he's part of the mission, or that this is some kind of top secret training exercise. He'll blog if force him to go."

"Well don't let him go then."

"It's hard enough to keep my eye on you alone, never mind three others."

"Alright, Ringtail," the android addressed the tech mogul, "In the interests of the success of this mission, of which we are in no way excluding you, I must ask that you do not report any of this on the internet."

"But I am being de secret agent!" Julian protested.

"No, this is um… a routine training exercise."

"But it is still…"

"Routine training exercise. Top-secret version of capture the flag. Still, it's dangerous…"

"Be specifying de dangerous."

"There is an 83% probability that if you accompany us on this mission, you will never be able to dance again," Kowalski reported. Immediately Julian's expression changed, "and by blogging about this, you will be involving yourself in the mission, possibly even increasing the probability to 90%."

"I am not thinking I will be going on this mission," Julian barely squeaked. He then thought for a few seconds, that seemed to last hours for both the android and Kowalski, "But I will be requiring a representative to go, so I am not completely missing out on de awesomeness… MORT, you will be accompanying de penguins on de mission."

"Ringtail!" Skipper objected.

"Ah ah ah!" Julian held up his Julian tablet, a whole post on them pre written, his finger poised over the submit button, "Do not be being de hasty!"

"Not going to happen, Ringtail…" The android snapped, to the point of even standing protectively between MORT and Julian.

"Fascinating…" Kowalski muttered, "Subject seems to be fiercely protective of smaller AI devices."

"…This is a dangerous mission, no place for any of you, certainly not MORT."

"I am going to be posting now!" Julian threatened, lowering his thumb.

"One minute, Mr King," Kowalski pulled the android to the side.

"I am not going to take MORT…" the android began to protest. He hadn't known MORT long, but he'd been the only person who'd at least on some level understood him, and so felt the need to protect the small device.

"Yes you are."

"Over my dead…"

"If I have to," Kowalski motioned to the button, which could shut him down permanently, "Don't forget your place."

"Jealous much?"

"I miss my real Skipper," Kowalski then returned to the main group, "alright; we'll take MORT with us…"

"And I will personally keep an eye on him." The android added.

* * *

Skipper's hacking cough echoed through the damp cellar, in which the Squirrel had installed a barred cell. Stacy Badger looked on, trying to hide her concern for the man. She knew the lack of food and even water, as well as the mental pressures the Squirrel worsened on a daily basis, were more than any person could take. She'd told the Squirrel that if she didn't do something, he would at some point die, to which the Squirrel had replied that he would survive. The Squirrel seemed to think the fact he was Skipper made him invincible. She wasn't so confident.

Stacy removed a thermos from her bag before approaching the cell and opening the door.

"I…" She doubted the man could hear her, but she spoke none the less, "I brought some soup. I couldn't get to the medicine locker, but I'll keep trying." Even asleep, he looked so angry. Once upon a time, she'd called herself Sadie Chinstrap, though that was a long time ago. She could still remember the crush she'd had on the first person to arrest her and her sister (after dragging them half way across Siberia), and apparently, she had yet to get over it.

"Hey Stace, shift's up." Becky called down the stairs. Immediately Stacy rolled the thermos under the cot, and left the cell as hurriedly as possible.

"What's wrong, Stace?" Becky queried, noting her sister's less than usual expression, "We still on for that game of spontaneous dodge ball?"

"Totally," Stacy picked up her bag and began to walk up the stairs towards the exit, "See ya 'round sis."

Becky waited for her sister's footsteps to recede into semi silence, before opening her bag…

Skipper half smiled as he heard Becky leave the room. He'd always complained to Nigel that playing possum was cowardly, but he'd recently adopted the attitude of anything it takes to survive. Amazingly, despite previous events, he'd still held on to a few shreds of old-fashioned honour.

Now Becky had left he would be completely unguarded for approximately half an hour. He'd suggested to Becky, though in half delirium of course, that she should spend more time with her sister, which was impossible within the rules as they took opposite shifts. Skipper sat up, taking the penknife he'd taken from Stacy's pocket, and the antibiotic spray Becky had brought, and set to work on the cell door with the knife.

The door now open, Skipper exited the cell, downing half the soup (he really was hungry, but refusing to eat had been a convincing part of the act) as he climbed the metal spiral staircase. When he reached the door, he removed the antibiotic, and sprayed the mist so that the fingerprint of the previous user was revealed on the fingerprint scanner, which immediately glowed green, recognising the reconstructed fingerprint. Skipper had doubted this would work, until he'd heard Becky complain that the Squirrel refused to invest in better technology, and that they were stuck with the old optical fingerprint scanners without a live finger detector. In other words, all it needed was an image.

Now for the third part of the plan: a distraction, with the possibility of satisfying a revenge for a possible death of Manfridi and Johnson. A heart, a lung, and fifteen feet of intestine, a painful way to go. At least he was no longer clinging to the false hope that Manfredi and Johnson were out there somewhere, possibly trying to rescue him, the Squirrel had explained in no uncertain terms that they had merely been projected into his mind by something called 'The Control'.

Skipper removed the monitor/tracking device from his pocket. He'd cut it off his wrist as soon as he'd gotten the knife and set about using his meagre technical skills to guess the passcode and reset it to display the pattern and location he wanted it to. He now started a pre saved file and watched as his heartbeat slowed to a dangerous level, before tossing it back into his cell. Another thing the two badger sisters didn't know he knew was that both had hooked up the input from the monitor to their own cell phones. Skipper set off in the direction of what he was pretty sure was the exit. Hopefully, he'd be able to hear the fireworks. He figured it would take a good fifteen minutes for the Squirrel to sort them out.

"Um, Stace, there's a call I really need to take," Becky excused herself from the game, looking pale as a ghost.

"Yeah, game was getting old for me too." Stacy replied, removing her phone. Both sisters then took off at a brisk pace in opposite directions, though as soon as the other was out of sight, set off running back to their neglected post. They then took opposite routs back to the basement room. However, as one entered through the front door and the other the hidden passageway, they simultaneously sighted the empty cell.

"What did you do with him?" Becky accused, glaring at her sister.

"Me? You were supposed to be keeping watch!"

"Whose suggestion was it for us to have that game? Hm?"

"Uh, yours."

"No it wasn't!" Becky leapt at her sister, her nails like claws, "I get it now, you were planning all along to keep me distracted, so you could sell him out to Geert."

"Would you stop badgering me about one careless joke…?"

"Badgering? Again with the new name, always making fun of it. Stacy that is hurtful badger stereotyping…"

"Stop being silly."

"You think I'm silly?! Listen sister…"

* * *

_Handprint: identified. Subject Skipper AKA Henderson, John AKA Douglas, Lincoln AKA Petey._ The android had only been idly scanning the walls out of sheer boredom as the team marched through the building's seemingly endless passages, until he'd seen the handprint in the wet plaster. He checked to see that Kowalski and Marlene were still engaged in their heated debate about how much funding should be given to seemingly pointless scientific projects, before approaching the print. It was quite recent, the plaster was still wet and glowed slightly warmer than the rest of the wall in infrared. As he looked along the seeging off tunnel, there were similar warm patches in infrared, as well as a small smear of AB type blood. Skipper couldn't be too far off. The android turned off the current path and set off after Skipper, the team completely unaware of his actions until a shrill electronic voice called:

"He's found de bossy penguin!" Immediately the android took off running. He wasn't going to let Skipper get away, yet his only chance of getting away was to put enough walls and general interference between him and Kowalski's kill switch, "He is going to be killing him!"

Kowalski knew what the android was doing almost seconds after MORT sounded the alarm, and was about to hit the button when it was snatched from his hand by Private. It would take him longer to snatch it back than it would take the android to get out of range. He was about to chase after the fugitive when three shots were fired and Kowalski had to dive for cover. He reached into his own pocket only to find the aforementioned weapon gone.

"Elusive Higgs field." The scientist muttered, running down the empty passageway, only to find that it forked into two paths, which, only a few meters further on, forked into five on each branch. Further on from that, the paths wold fork more, looping around like an overcrowded ant farm. The scientist stood, attempting to guess the direction the android went, until the rest of the team caught up.

"Rico, give me a ball of string." The scientist ordered, taking the string from Rico's hand and setting off one of the passageways, only to return a few seconds later, diving off into a new one. This was kept up for almost five minutes.

Suddenly a cry of pain echoed through the passageways.

"We're too late…" Private gasped, and was about to run off into the rabbit warren of tunnels, when Kowalski pulled him back.

"If that android is anything like Skipper, there's nothing we can do," Kowalski stated grimly, though desperately trying to hold it together.

"But…"

"You'll only get yourself lost." A single tear trickled down Private's cheek, which he immediately wiped away.

"Slap me."

"What?"

"'s what Skippah would do for me being such a softie," The boy sniffled.

"You guys have really got to put a bit more faith in me." Skipper's familiar voice chuckled. There he stood, just on the border of the shadows, a slight limp, and  
a makeshift sling supporting his left arm. Beside him stood the android, a strange, sad, or almost amused expression on his face, "I always come back, even if this time it took a little longer than usual.

"You want me to slap him for you?" the android asked.

"My right arm's just dandy, thank you very much." Skipper replied, slapping the boy across the face, "Sniffle time's over, Private. We've got about five minutes until they realise I'm missing."

**I just had to put in that cliché ending, if only to mimic the first story. Anyway, sorry for the infrequent updates, I've been dividing my time between this and rewriting Do You Really Want to Know. I hope to make updates more frequent as the end of the story looms, but no guarantees.**


	23. 193 Is Too Many

**Penultimate chapter! Ok, this story got way more confusing than I originally intended it to. If you're a bit confused, go ahead and ask.** **Just to answer a question, Skipper is not Hans, Hans was Hans, and Geert is very much Geert, Skipper was just making that up, since there's no way the Red Squirrel would know if he was lying. **

"Alright Kowalski, give me some options," the two Skippers requested in unison.

"Sorry, sir." The android apologised, noting Skipper's raised eyebrow. The real leader hadn't been replaced that fast had he?

"Well, I think we can exit the way we came in, that will take us approximately ten minutes." Kowalski replied.

"15.77732 compensating for the limp." The android added.

"However, we placed some charges in key structural locations that should destroy enough of the Blue Hen's…"

"It's the Red Squirrel, for the last time!"

"Android, I will not go through this again, the Red Squirrel…"

"Is exactly who we are up against," Skipper finished, "I got the gist of it. Let's get moving. You know the way back?"

"Can I build a working particle collider from the parts of an antiquated shrink-ray, which of course, I..." Kowalski affirmed as he turned around, only to find that his last statement had been made in haste. Before him there were at least six paths to take, each branching into multiple paths further along as did the paths the Skippers had emerged from, "… Oh, Ohm's Law."

"Warning, escape detected!" a voice announced over the loud speaker.

"Well, that's just dandy. Kowalski, give me that detonator." Skipper ordered. Kowalski automatically looked to Rico, who shrugged his shoulders.

"I think he dropped it when we went after you." Marlene answered, to which Rico unfortunately nodded.

"Alright, we pick a random passage and hope it gets us out of here."

* * *

The two skipper's had kept equal pace as the team rushed through the tunnels, remaining almost completely silent.

"How's the arm holding up?" The android asked, breaking the silence.

"Fine. You did a good job." Skipper replied. As good a job as he would have done patching up a dislocated shoulder.

"I'm sorry about… If I kind of freaked you…"

"Maybe young Private, but I'm not…"

"No, I get it. When the first motion and optical systems prototype of me malfunctioned and I saw myself with glowing red eyes walking out of the darkness, it wasn't exactly expected. I can't really help doing that when I go infra-red though."

"Hm." Skipper acknowledged, and there was a pause in the conversation, "How'd the team get along without me?"

"Not well." The android replied.

"They seemed to be getting on pretty well, taking orders from you and all that." There was a hint of jealously in Skipper's voice that he wasn't proud of. He'd never gotten big headed about it, but he'd always thought the men in his team, including himself, were one of a kind. Well, apparently all it took was a glorified calculator to replace him.

"Only for the last twenty four hours. Amazingly Kowalski took control."

"Well, I always expected it would be Marlene, not that I approve of a woman on the team. Messes with the morale." Skipper was still trying to work out just what was set up by the Squirrel, and what was fiction, he'd seen Manfredi and Johnson with his own eyes, yet they were just some weird mind control device.

"Hopefully now you're back things should go back to normal. Everyone gets what happened, they understand what you were going through."

"Yeah, well I'll try to be just as understanding," Skipper replied taking the hint. If she loved Kowalski, well, he was glad she was happy.

"That was just a coincidence," The android answered, calculating from drop in pace, saddened glances towards Marlene followed by extended periods staring at the ground.

"You would know," Skipper answered with a weak smile. He still found it creepy that he'd been a bug in a jar for who knows how long, "Still…"

"Stop right there!" the Squirrel's voice echoed through the intercom, "I know you can hear me."

"What do you want?" Skipper shouted. This was followed by the Squirrel's impressive impression of an evil laugh.

"Turn yourself over to me, and I will release your friends."

"In some parallel universe." Kowalski snapped.

"Think about it Kowalski. It will take you six minutes to make it out of the building. If I am making this announcement, I must be in the main security room. Now, the main security room is two minutes from the room in which you placed the detonator for your explosives, yes, skipper, I know all about those, thirty seconds to reprogram it, and one minute and a half to get clear. That is a total of four minutes. There is no possible way for you to clear the blast range in time. I however, will be safely out of range."

"Don't do it Skippah!" Private suddenly shouted, recognising the look on skipper's face, "as soon as you give yourself up he'll just blow the place anyway."

"Good observation, young one," the Squirrel cackled, "It will take Skipper approximately four minutes to reach me. Now, if I want him alive, at this point in time at least, I won't throw the switch…"

"But we're still within the blast range once he gets there." The android pointed out.

"But it takes me two minutes to get to the detonator and one and a half minutes to get clear. Do you understand my reasoning?" the Squirrel received no reply, "I'll take that as a yes, then. Your route is simple, retrace your steps back to the junction cavern where you re-joined your team, and take the third right." The announcement cut off.

"I've got no choice," the two Skippers stated in unison, both in the same grim tone. The turned each glaring at each other. Then both turned from the other, their eyes both darting about the room. Slowly, and _not at all _suspiciously, they sauntered away from each other, their eyes giving no indication of their targets. Then Skipper bent as if to tie his shoelace.

"Don't try to play the hero, Skipper." The flesh and blood skipper argued to distract from the metal pipe he was picking up from the floor. _The android might have a higher IQ and access to the internet, but he was no match when it came to good old-fashioned ingenuity_, skipper reasoned. He'd knock the robot out before he even knew what hit him.

"I could say the same to you." The android countered, carefully lifting the wooden board propped up against the wall. For once the android was glad of his genius level intellect, even if it did clash with his otherwise comparably ignorant wiring. Skipper would never know what hit him.

The two Skippers once again sauntered towards each other, arms as if clasped behind their back, but each really gripping their chosen weapon. Kowalski looked on with curiosity, wondering just which one would hit the other first. Suddenly there was a hollow thump and the clang of metal on metal.

"Fascinating," Kowalski muttered, "they hit at exactly the same time."

"Skippah…!" Private rushed forward towards the unconscious man.

"Sorry, Private," spoke the android in answer to the boy's silent question, "he's going to be out for a while and have a nasty bump on the head, but he won't have a concussion or any kind of serious injury," the android placed the pipe on the floor, removed his jacket and placed it under Skipper's head. He turned to Kowalski, "I realise now, I'm not Skipper. I'm… I'm not sure what I am," the android looked down to his feet, though almost immediately the strength returned to his gaze, "but I do know this, the team needs a Skipper and Private a father," Skipper removed the gun he had taken from Kowalski out of his pocket, handing it to Rico.

"What are you…"

"I know the Squirrel, Kowalski," Skipper stated, "he only wants the real me alive so he can shoot him himself. You need it more than me," it was clear from the look in his optical sensors, and from the eyes of everyone else that the android's statement was painfully true. There was no way he was coming back. Suddenly the android stood up strait, surveying his men like the officer who's memories he was encoded with, "Now, it will only take a few seconds after…" he didn't finish for Private's sake, "for the Squirrel to realise he's been duped. That should still give you time to get clear, even accounting for carrying Skipper. Understand?"

"Yes, sir!" the team answered in unison, along with the click of heels as they stood to attention. Skipper smiled, "It's been an honour to serve with you, gentlemen," he saluted. Then he turned to the unconscious Skipper, "and it's been an honour to finally meet you, sir, if only briefly."

"Skippah…?" Private asked cautiously, "Why did you, you know, not hurt other Skippah?"

"That's classified between me and your boss young Private."

"Oh, dis is so sad!" MORT bawled in Kowalski's hand, "I do not want Andriody to go away!" The little device shook itself from Kowalski's grip and wheeled towards the android, landing on his boot, "If… If de chipmunk blows de place kaboomy, do you think one of your titanium stabilizers will be left so I can remember you?"

"Uh…" The android picked up the device, "I'm not sure how I'm supposed to answer that, so, it's a 93.997% probability." He handed it back to Kowalski, before moving to leave. He wasn't one for mushy goodbyes. They only made it harder, at least, that's what the real Skipper had told Manfridi and Johnson back in Denmark.

* * *

"It detonated early?" Marlene questioned in a monotone. She didn't need Kowalski to tell her it was physically impossible for the Squirrel to get clear in time, meaning only one thing. Kowalski had worked this out, though felt no need to voice this as he watched the building burn. He could almost hear the echo of the gunshot, though his thoughts were taken up more with the fact that the android had taken Doris' location with him. Skipper on the other hand, could see the triumphant smirk, and the cry of fury as the Red Squirrel realised that the android had handcuffed him to the bomb as it counted down unstoppably. Private could see the trail of oil and coolant that leaked from the wound in the android's central processor as he dragged himself forward. And Rico saw the first kaboom that he hated.

"Well, well, well, looks like I will get that rematch," a familiar voice announced, the sentence punctuated by his fist hitting his hand. Behind him were two dozen Rats. Kowalski didn't have the energy to scream one of his science related exclamations.

"Well it looks like we're out of the frying pan and into the fire." Private whispered. However just as the team were resigning themselves to their fate, the gigantic crane above their heads began to move, the rusted metal dome it carried slowly aligning itself over the heads of the aggressors, until it was directly above them, when it dropped.

"You all alright down there?" Nigel shouted poking his head out of the door of the crane. Receiving no negative response, he climbed down the ladder, and ran over to the team.

"Uncle Nigel?" Private asked.

"Indeed, old boy," he replied, "Feels good to be back in the game," However, seeing the expressions on the team's faces, his mood changed, "Where's Blue?"

"Blue?" Kowalski asked, finally acknowledging the newcomer.

"Yes, I tracked her here."

"Then it was all a trap," skipper stated angrily, "Again!" The Squirrel had anticipated his every move since the start. He just couldn't accept that his escape, the android's sacrifice, everything, was all another part of some sick game, "She'd never be sloppy enough to let you get a decent lead on her unless she wanted you to."

"I wasn't tracking her, per se; I was actually following the trail of a young lady she seemed to be taking with her."

"Wait, can you give me a description?" Kowalski asked eagerly.

"About yay tall," Nigel motioned, "Blond hair, blue eyes…"

"HELP! KOWALSKI!" a woman's voice screamed, interrupting Nigel's description.

"Doris!?" Kowalski immediately set off running towards the source of the sound, though obscured by the crane. The team followed a few paces behind.

"Wait," Nigel called after them, "it's probably a…!" However the team was already out of sight, "Oh bugger." He sighed, running after them. Rockgut was right; he was too old for this.

"Doris?" Kowalski panicked, searching the area, his worries leaving him oblivious to the fact that the area into which they'd run was ideal for an ambush.

"Kowalski?!" a faint voice called from behind a rusting forklift. Suddenly Skipper heard the twang of a bowstring releasing. There was a thump as the arrow hit flesh. Skipper turned around.

"Private?!"

"Ge' 'own, 'ipper!" Rico ordered, pushing Skipper down, at the same time grabbing the first weapon he could find in his backpack, namely a spear gun, and aiming it at the area the arrow had come from. Suddenly there was a blur of movement as the attacker attempted to move to an angle at which he could hit Skipper.

"Doris, move!" the blur shouted, and was about to draw the string to fire again, when Rico shot first, pinning the attacker to the wall behind him, the spear sticking out of his leg.

"Don't you ever give up, Geert?" Skipper asked, inspecting Private's arm from which a barbed arrow protruded, the same arrow that would otherwise be in his heart.

"I will never give up," Geert spat, his face white with pain, "never."

"Ow!" Doris exclaimed as she twisted her angle in a poor attempt at flight. Immediately Kowalski's attention as diverted to her.

"You betrayed me Doris? Again?" Kowalski asked, his heartbreak apparent. Doris merely looked up guiltily.

* * *

Geert followed the men in dark suits and sunglasses towards the nondescript car without protest, though shot a glare of pure hatred at Skipper as he passed. Doris however, didn't accept the fact that any struggles at this point would be completely futile.

"Kowalski?" she called out when she was only a few feet from the car, a look of true fear on her face, "you aren't really going to let them take me, are you?!" Kowalski didn't acknowledge her, "Kowalski?!"

"You betrayed me, Doris." He replied, after a few moments.

"Geert had rescued me from Blue, Kowalski. I owed it to him," She pleaded, though quickly saw that it had no effect, "Come on Kowalski, this is no different than before, I promise I won't do anything like this again," Kowalski still made no move to release her, "Don't you love me?"

"Doris," Kowalski allowed the word to hang in the air, as he glanced at Private who was receiving treatment for his arm, "This time you've gone too far. I'm not sorry. I only wish I had done this earlier."

"Kowalski?" Doris called as she got into the car. Kowalski was still unmoved. The door shut, and the car began to drive away, probably to Hoboken.

"About time you got over her." Skipper stated, "193 betrayals is just a security liability." However, it was as the car rounded the bend and disappeared from sight, that Kowalski began to regret his decision.


	24. The End

"You head of Penguin?" Rockgut scoffed, "never thought I'd see the day."

"_Acting_ head of Penguin, and only till you feel ready to come back," Nigel clarified, "I'm retired remember."

"You know I'd actually thought you'd like that, your cups of tea and pretty princess talk." Rockgut defended. The two old friends were lunching together in the near empty cafeteria.

"See, it's a good enough front it even got to you at some level. In my spare time, it's strictly monster trucks." There was a pause as Nigel took a sip of his tea.

"Oh, I know what you're trying to do…" Rockgut laughed, recognising his friend's expression.

"You reinstated the team, claiming they hadn't gone rogue, but were on an 'extremely deep cover mission'…"

"That's completely different…"

"And Kitka…"

"She was always a valuable agent…"

"Rockgut…."

"I needed to find some way to keep her out of trouble!" The superior attempted to defend, "You know, away from Skipper? I'm posting her to Antarctica tomorrow."

"Excuses, my dear boy. Sheer nonsense."

"Alright, alright," Rockgut submitted, "But you're not getting a promotion."

"Hunting though documents doesn't count."

"Fine, you're the special agent in charge of the team's probation."

"You had that all planned out, didn't you?"

"You read me like a book, Nigel." Rockgut laughed, putting down his cutlery, "Well, I'm back to work in a week. I'll see what kind of a mess you've left the place in…"

"Sir, there's something I think you should see." Kitka walked towards the table, holding an envelope. Suddenly Rockgut's eyes widened with fear.

"Red… Red Squirrel…" He stuttered, staring at the Kitka's red hair.

"Rockgut?" Nigel questioned. The man blinked as if confused, then settled down with a slightly confused expression.

"Maybe you aren't quite ready to come back…?" Nigel began to question, but was quickly cut off.

"Nonsense, I'm perfectly fine." The man stood up, "Nice talking to you Nigel," He then nodded to the newer arrival, "Miss Kitka." And left. Nigel wasn't sure quite what to make of the incident.

However, the day's surprises were not over, as Nigel discovered the moment he opened the envelope.

"Are you sure this is correct?" Nigel asked, reading the first few lines, "He wants to be transferred out of the team?"

"I thought it was some kind of joke to, but the handwriting matches, and if you read a little further…" Nigel raised a hand motioning for her to be quiet.

"I don't blame him," Nigel said after a few minutes, "Actually I blame myself. I shouldn't have helped Skipper cover it all up."

* * *

"…They wouldn't send her to Hoboken…" Kowalski thought aloud in front of a map of all the maximum-security bases known to Penguin, incomprehensible scribbles drawn in black marker all over, "No, her brother would just break her out… No, not that one either…"

"You know I'd thought you'd made the first good decision in your entire love life." Skipper stated.

"But Skipper, it wasn't her fault. She was pressured, manipulated…"

"The only pressured and manipulated person I see is standing right in front of me." Skipper countered, before the scientist could go too sappy.

"You don't understand…"

"And they say love made me blind," Skipper rolled his eyes, grabbing the model glue and leaving the room, presumably to return the hunt for the pieces missing from the S.S. Fiskelukt, "Stop behaving like a pathetic Nancy cat, man up, and accept your decision, Kowalski, before you get yourself court martialled."

"You know the android was more sensitive than you are," Kowalski muttered thoughtlessly; however, when his eyes returned to the workspace before him, they rested on the titanium stabilisers, which as the android had predicted, had been the only parts to survive.

"And now you realise." Marlene commented.

"Would people please stop sneaking up on me and making sarcastic comments?" Kowalski countered half-heartedly.

"Stop standing with your back to the door," Marlene marched into the room, eyeing the stabilisers and the envelope addressed to Julian next to it.

"I was jealous." Kowalski stated simply.

"What? You wanted to build him first?"

"Pretty much." Kowalski partially lied.

"So why take it out on him? Why not Kuchikukhan?"

"Did you see Kuchikukhan anywhere?"

"Really? Think of a better one."

"Fine," Kowalski put the parts in the envelope, sealing it, "I assume, because Skipper read my high school diary, you have too…"

"That is not fair!"

"I've always been envious of Skipper. Who wouldn't? But I was always the smart one, the options guy. That was my shtick…"

"And the android was not only a leader and master combatant like Skipper, as strong as Rico…"

"And potentially a better options guy than me. What if Skipper decided it was better to have him on the team?"

"Then you don't know anything about Skipper. He'd feel more threatened if someone was better than him than you are. Good luck with finding Doris. Hopefully she'll realise she needs to pick a side after spending a little time in Seaville."

* * *

When Skipper saw the document hastily hidden beneath a pile of lunicorn merchandise, he knew exactly what it was. He'd sent in several similar requests a number of years ago trying to leave Penguin, However his had all been denied.

"_Dear Private,_

_I must admit I am shocked by your decision to request a transfer to another team, with a preference to work on Project: Baboon with Darla, Carol, and Gillian; however, I understand your position. If at any point you chose to return to the team, I will be happy to entertain any request to do so._

_In summary, the board has granted your request, and also the request to act as reform officer for one 'Barry' as he likes to be called these days, a potentially valuable agent._

_Best of luck,_

_Agent Nigel"_

Skipper looked to the page behind, which seemed to be a copy of a letter from Private.

"_Dear Agent Nigel,_

_You asked for more information on my reasons for requesting a transfer, and may I state informally that I would like to be transferred to Project: Baboon. I request that my reasons be kept in the strictest confidence, as they are of a personal nature._

_You may (or may not) have heard mention of a violent disagreement between my immediate superior and me. This of course was due entirely to manipulation on the part of the Red Squirrel. However, I learned prior to the incident, that Fossa had nothing to do with my mother's, Lola Henderson's, death. I know you are well aware of the rest so I will not continue. Before you tell me that I was the victim of manipulation, and may not have heard Skipper's confirmation clearly due to shock and blood loss, I have checked with several independent reliable sources._

_Due to this, I feel I cannot remain on this team._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Agent Timothy Douglas"_

"Private?" Skipper entered the livingroom, holding the letter, "What's this?" Private looked up, though his expression automatically betrayed his alarm.

"Personal, Skippah." He replied, giving him that strange look he'd had whenever he looked at Skipper since he had returned.

"You asked for a transfer?" Skipper was obviously trying to hide the anger and betrayal that came with such a decision.

"Yes." Private replied, switching off the television. He could tell this was going to be a long conversation. Skipper looked at him, expecting more.

"Well… why?"

"Skippah…" Private's attention temporarily redirected to his hands which were fidgeting wildly, "I like to think I'm someone who can always forgive and forget, and I've tried, but ironically I have come to realise that you were correct in saying there are some things you simply can't."

"When I said that, I meant serious things…"

"Your precise context was your conflict with Hans," Private looked like he was going to cry which he would in a few minutes. Skipper however, looked completely confused, "I don't think there's much difference between our situations."

"Private, whatever you think I've done…"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about," Private interrupted, "You killed my mother and lied about it the whole time."

"What?! Private, who told you that?" Skipper protested. Private paused, looking at skipper slightly strangely.

"But… you admitted it," Private stuttered, "You said when we were fighting… before you…"

"_I_ didn't," Skipper corrected firmly, "The switch had already been made. The android was just trying to incriminate me, and what better way than to have me admit my own guilt?"

"Oh…" Private smiled, though almost immediately another thought occurred to him, "But you were poisoned. The android was immune…"

"Who would you rather believe: people purposely feeding you false information to divide the team or your own commanding officer?" Skipper asked. Private considered this for a few seconds a somewhat comically confused expression on his face.

"My commanding officer, I guess?"

"Correct-a-mondo young private," Skipper smiled as sheer relief washed over Private's face.

"If you don't mind, Skippah, I'd like to call Uncle Nigel to tell him to cancel that request."

"Go right ahead Private. Marlene has your phone, I think your week of being grounded is up."

"Thanks, Skippah." Private called over his shoulder as he left the room to search for Marlene. Skipper continued to watch the door, long after the boy had left, with such intensity that he did not here Kowalski enter from the garage.

"You know he won't stay young and, more importantly, naïve, forever." Kowalski stated grimly. The scientist hadn't exactly been in favour of lying, but he had agreed not to correct Private, since it was really, the only way, "he's a smart kid. He'll work it out."

"I know," Skipper continued to watch the doorframe thoughtfully, "But by then he'll have probably seen enough to understand." Kowalski stared at Skipper a few seconds, with a concerned expression. Unnerved by the strange silence, Skipper's attention left the door, and moved to the scientist, whom for once he could not read.

"Then I hope that day never comes," Kowalski answered crisply, after some time, "at least I certainly hope fate doesn't twist him that much," Kowalski removed his hand from the table top he had been leaning against. Then, in answer to the question so obviously written on his face answered, "Because I don't understand." Skipper paused, looking slightly stunned by the remark. Then he relaxed slightly, adopting a kind of weary smile.

"If I start thinking of excuses now what's the probability I've got a half decent one when I need it?" Kowalski rolled his eyes at the crudity of the joke, though it had served its purpose in alleviating the tension.

"Just man up, skipper," Kowalski replied turning to return to the war zone that was the kitchen, "In your own words: stop behaving like a pathetic Nancy cat and get it over with."

"Touché, Kowalski."

* * *

"Hello Marlene," Private greeted, poking his head into the study, "Skippah says I can have my phone back now."

"You seem unusually cheery," Marlene commented, "Did you miss your phone that much?"

"No, not at all Marlene," Private corrected, accepting the device Marlene had taken down from the top of one of the filing cabinets, "If you must know, me and Skipper cleared up that disagreement."

"Disagreement? Major understatement considering the way you two went at each other."

"No, you see, that was the misunderstanding. Skipper wasn't really Skipper then." Private explained chirpily as he left the room.

"Yeah." Marlene she was glad to see a smile on the boy's face, despite the fact it was the result of an outright lie. They'd all been hurt by what had happened. Well, almost all of them. Skipper, after making a short address on the android's bravery seemed to have continued as if the whole thing was just another assignment. It didn't seem like denial, she could tell that a mile away, especially with Skipper, he honestly seemed to be the only one who's replies of 'I'm fine' were perfectly genuine.

Marlene eyed the photograph of Manfredi and Johnson (bearing no resemblance to the descriptions Skipper gave of the Manfredi and Johnsons he encountered), which surprisingly hadn't been removed from the desk. She wasn't sure if she was glad, or disturbed that Skipper seemed to feel absolutely nothing. It was good that he wasn't barely holding together as she was told was Rockgut's condition, but it did make her wonder what made someone like him tick. It made the frightening thought enter her head, as to how bad Denmark must have been to cause Skipper to attempt to erase the whole incident from his mind.

"Marlene?" Skipper poked his head into the room.

"Yeah."

"I promised I'd take you out to dinner, didn't I? It's our anniversary after all."

The End


End file.
